European Union News - Agriculture & Fisheries

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.

The European Commission adopted a proposal aimed to apply new rules with regard to the publication of information on the beneficiaries of European agricultural funds. The proposal takes into account the legal constraints inherent to the protection of personal data by setting certain limits. This proposal follows a Court of Justice of the European Union judgment which, on 9 November 2010, had partially invalidated the regulations on transparency in the agricultural sector.

MEPs urged to member states that global efforts to combat illegal fishing be stepped up, and improvements made to agreements with third countries which allow EU vessels to fish in their waters in a Fisheries Committee meeting. They also asked for banning to remove shark fins on board vessels.

The European Commission presented the EASIN network (the European Alien Species Information Network) which aim to facilitate the mapping and classification of alien species by indexing reported data from over 40 online databases. It has been calculated the existence of around to 16,000 alien species currently reported all over Europe.

The European Parliament has approved in plenary session a new regulation which will enable farmers and other groups to protect the authenticity and origin of their products more effectively and to ensure the correct use of protected names. The new rules will also reduce by half the time to obtain an EU quality label.

Under the so-called clearance of accounts procedure, a total of €215 million of EU agricultural policy funds unduly spent by Member States is being claimed back by the European Commission. In particular, funds will be recovered from Germany, Ireland, Greece, France, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Hungary, Austria, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The Green Paper on "Marine Knowledge" adopted by the European Commission launches a consultation on how to know more about what is happening under the sea through to create a digital seabed map of European waters by 2020. Among other things, the consultation pretends gather views on the collecting all existing data into one coherent database accessible to everyone for creating the seabed map of European waters.