Updates from the EU Commission, Council and Parliament
The weather isn’t the only thing heating up over the next few months. Negotiations over the shapes of the EU’s farming subsidy programme will start firing on all cylinders in the second half of the year. Natasha Foote walks you through the latest from Brussels. […]
The real threat to your dinner isn’t organic farming – it’s climate change (and the agroindustry lobby). In this op-ed Dr Andrea Beste calls for an approach to food security based on scientific facts and systemic sustainability. […]
You can have your cake and eat it too, according to a leaked version of the EU’s upcoming livestock strategy, which leans on technofixes to address our biggest environmental and climate challenges while shying away from some of the meatier questions on reduction of livestock numbers. ARC2020’s Natasha Foote breaks down the key takeaways from the draft. […]
After years of intense lobbying, negotiation, and semantic gymnastics, it’s official. Europe is set to open its farm gates and plates to new genetic technologies, without the guardrails of labelling, monitoring, or liability. Natasha Foote breaks down exactly what this means and what’s next. […]
Yesterday the European Parliament voted to open farm gates – and by extension, our plates – to New Genetic Technologies (NGTs). This is a seismic development that reveals cracks in the EU’s democratic institutions. How now to defend our rights as consumers to choose what we eat? Comment by ARC2020 board member Benny Haerlin. […]
As EU lawmakers prepare to rewrite rules governing the production, exchange and sale of seeds, two opposing worlds collide. In one, seeds are intellectual property, carefully regulated and protected as engines of innovation. In the other, they are living commons, saved, exchanged and adapted by farmers across generations. To dig into the seedy underbelly of the agrifood world, ARC2020’s Natasha Foote travelled between two major seed gatherings held just days (but worlds) apart, each offering a radically different vision of the future. […]
The PFAS panic has seen us eye everything from non-stick pans to takeaway packaging with suspicion. But what if one of the most direct routes of exposure to these ‘forever chemicals’ is not in the kitchen cupboard, but on our plates? Here ARC2020’s Natasha Foote lifts the lid on PFAS pesticides and how new pesticide plans in the EU’s regulatory pipeline could open doors to ‘forever chemicals’ that can’t be closed. […]
What would you do with €2.5 trillion? This is the amount the EU spends every year on public procurement. With the rules that shape this spending up for revision, there is a multi-trillion euro opportunity to serve better food in schools, hospitals, prisons and care homes – while simultaneously supporting farmers and nourishing local economies. Ashley Parsons reports. […]
In a few short weeks, the European Parliament will have the power to open Europe’s farmgates and plates to new genetic technologies, without the guardrails of labelling, monitoring, or liability. But in Brussels, an eleventh-hour battle is brewing. So is this game, set and match? Or is there still something to play for? Natasha Foote brings you the latest from Brussels. […]
April 21st will be the next (and perhaps final) milestone meeting for negotiators trying to seal a deal on the overhaul of the EU’s seed legislation. On the very same day, the Council is to vote on the EU’s proposal to loosen the rules around new genetic technologies. For the Seeds4All project, Natasha Foote explains what’s at stake in these two crucial files. […]
Four years ago, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent fertiliser prices soaring, exposing the true extent of just how reliant our food systems are on fossil fuels and the vulnerability of geopolitical chaos. When are we going to learn this lesson? Today, with conflict escalating in the Middle East, we are watching the same crisis unfold in real time. Op-ed by Lena Luig. […]
Two years after a wave of farmer protests swept across Europe, the political response that dismantled key environmental measures in the EU’s most expensive policy at breakneck speed has left an indelible mark on decision-making in Brussels. In this investigation, we trace the closed-door discussions via exclusive interviews and insights that led to the rapid rewriting of EU farm policy at the height of the so-called farming ‘crisis’ and dig into the moment that broke new ground for EU policymaking. Natasha Foote reports. […]
The EU’s watchdog is ready for the fight over fairness in the EU’s future farming policy just as NGOs launch another round of legal scrutiny over the Commission’s conduct in the handling of the next Common Agricultural Policy. […]
Lawyers have declared it unlawful. The EU’s watchdog has found maladministration. And yet it’s full steam ahead for the EU’s simplification train – or ‘omnibus’, to be more precise. As one simplification chapter closes, another opens. What is going on, and what does this mean going forward? Natasha Foote brings you the latest in the legal wrangle around the EU’s simplification saga. […]
Welcome to the Year of the CAP — but just how “common” will the EU’s next agricultural policy be? Could pensioners be excluded from direct payments? And will farmers finally get a day off? Meanwhile EU leaders are freewheeling in the direction of free-trade deals. We may remember 2026 as the year the floodgates were opened to new genetic technologies. Plus the future of seeds is at stake, with upcoming trilogues that will make or break the proposed overhaul of the EU’s Seed Law. But first, there’s a battle looming over the budget. Natasha Foote reports on a decisive year ahead for EU policy. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention
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