Month: December 2020

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The CAP Transitional Regulation and Next Generation EU funds

The European Parliament approved last Tuesday evening the common position on the CAP Transitional Regulation previously agreed with the Council. Once the Council gives its formal approval, it will take effect from 1 January 2021. The Regulation provides legal certainty regarding the rules for payments to farmers by continuing the application of the rules of the current CAP framework in the two calendar years 2021 and 2022 under the ‘old rules, new money’ principle.

The Regulation makes necessary amendments to the four CAP Regulations that make up the 2013 CAP reform (direct payments, rural development, single common market organisation, and horizontal matters).… Read the rest

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The EU’s proposed ‘net 55%’ reduction target for 2030 – a clarification

One of the decisions taken at the European Council summit last week was an agreement that “To meet the objective of a climate-neutral EU by 2050 in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, the EU needs to increase its ambition for the coming decade and update its climate and energy policy framework. To that end, the European Council endorses a binding EU target of a net domestic reduction of at least 55% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990.”

The European Council thus endorsed the Commission’s proposal in its 2030 Climate Target Plan Communication for an EU-wide, economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction target by 2030 compared to 1990 of at least 55% including emissions and removals.… Read the rest

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EU Farm to Fork Strategy: How reasonable is the turmoil predicted by USDA?

We are pleased to welcome this guest post by Dr Yelto Zimmer, who is the coordinator of the agri benchmark Cash Crop Network at the Thünen Institute, Germany. Comments can be emailed directly to yelto.zimmer@agribenchmark.net.

The US agricultural ministry (USDA) recently published a report on the likely consequences if the EU Commission’s Farm to Fork (F2F) Communication were to be put in place. In this paper, the Commission proposes a set of measures that are supposed to lead to lower greenhouse gas emission in European agriculture and improve the overall environmental and public health performance of the sector.

Even in the modest USDA scenario, the projected outcome from F2F would be substantial turmoil of EU agriculture and even some significant changes in global agriculture.… Read the rest