European Union News - Agriculture & Fisheries

During a meeting held on 7 November with the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dacian Cioloș, the President of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), Ramon Luis Valcárcel, underlined the potential of the agricultural sector in delivering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. He is therefore against any cut to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget.

The European Environmental Agency has released its first Report on Protected Areas in Europe which shows the development of such environmental areas over the past years. In the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Habitats Directive and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the report highlights that despite the significant increase in the extent of protected areas, there is still little attention paid at this issue at pan-European level.

According to the latest report put forward by the Commission, over 54,000 schools took part in the European School Fruit Scheme during the 2010-2011 academic year, distributing up to 43,000 tons of fruit among their students. This Scheme funded with €90 million is aimed at reducing the increase in childhood overweight and obesity in the European Union.

The European Commission presented a new proposal which is intended to lighten administrative burdens and make it easier to assess the potential impacts of major projects, without weakening existing environmental safeguards.

The first day of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting ended with an agreement between ministers on fishing opportunities for 2013 for certain fish stocks in the Baltic Sea. This agreement lays down for 2013 the maximum quantities of fish from specific stocks that can be caught in the Baltic Sea (total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas), as well as the fishing effort limits for Baltic cod stocks.

The new European Commission's proposal on biofuels intends to minimise the climate impacts of biofuel production. It therefore proposes to limit global land conversion for biofuel production, and raise the climate benefits of biofuels used in the EU.

The European Commission announced that the Single CMO Management Committee voted to allocate €500 million from the EU funds for the 2013 Food for the Most Deprived programme. This will be the last year that the scheme will run in this form, funded from the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).

MEPs at the Environment Committee voted in favour to make mandatory accounting for farm and forestry emissions. They also recommended a future obligation to account for emissions from wetlands. The draft legislation explicitly does not put any administrative burden on "private parties" such as farmers or forest managers.

In line with the scientific advice, the European Commission proposes to increase total allowable catches (TACs) for 3 stocks, a decrease for 13 stocks, and maintain TACs at the current level for 8 stocks (including zero TACs for 6 stocks), in EU and international waters of the North-East Atlantic for 2013-2014.

European Ministers for maritime policy and the European Commission adopted the new Maritime Agenda for growth and jobs. They adopted a declaration that proposes a marine and maritime agenda to back the Europe 2020 strategy. The agenda proposes a dynamic and coordinated approach to maritime affairs enhances the development of the EU's 'Blue Economy' while ensuring the health of seas and oceans.

The EU and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) signed a partnership to jointly address challenges in sustainable agriculture and food and nutrition security, in order to reduce poverty in rural communities in developing countries. An example of this partnership is the Support to Farmers Organisations in Africa Programme, co-financed by the EU and the IFAD.