As part of CAP simplification, the European Commission is attempting to bring in some changes to greening. However a group of 18 Member States oppose three of the new, clear simple rules which happen to be stricter than the current rules. […]
What may turn out to be a very important EU Commission Rural Development event is being held in Cork, Ireland, this coming Monday. Oliver Moore explains why. […]
In his second contribution to this #MilkCrisis debate, Alan Matthews considers contributions thus far and also the recent development of EU-wide voluntary reductions as part of a €500 million package. […]
A seven part E500 million package of aid for the agri sector has been announced. Which sectors and Member States benefit? […]
In the third in our milk crisis and farm income debate series, Alan Matthews suggests that supply management is not the way to improve price and income. […]
In what has been an absolutely tumultuous week for the EU and its institutions, Jean Claude Junker has announced that the European Commission intends to approve the EU-Canada trade deal CETA without national parliament approval. […]
ARC2020’s President Hannes Lorenzen gives us his thoughts after Brexit.
A report from Friends of the Earth Europe points to serious concerns for EU farming and food due to the ongoing – and now under severe pressure TTIP talks. […]
The National Farmers Union, representing 50,000 of the largest and wealthiest farming landowners in England (and Wales), who receive the lion’s share of all subsidies provided to the UK by the EU, have voted to support the Remain campaign. How and why has this happened? Miles King explains. […]
“Ecological focus areas should be established, in particular, in order to safeguard and improve biodiversity on farms“. So say the official EU documents. And yet for these EFAs, Member States are choosing ‘productive options’ – in particular catch crops and nitrogen fixing crops – over biodiversity. Using newly released data, Sebastian Lakner shows us just how ineffective and poorly targeted EFAs are, in Germany and beyond. […]
European negotiators have struck a clumsy compromise to protect about one in 10 of the EU’s Geographical Indicators (GIs) during transatlantic trade talks with the Canadians. Protected geographical terms have long been a bone of contention on the other side of the Atlantic, as ARC2020 reported earlier in its TTIP coverage. Classified by some as a technical barrier to trade, the EU’s extensive register of geographical indications (GIs) has often been held up as an example of unfair practice by traders up and down north America. On February 29, the European Commission released a summary of the final text of the Comprehensive European Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA), which is widely regarded as a TTIP testbed. Had the details been in the public domain earlier in the negotiating process they would have sparked howls of protest: the current document, however, represents a fait accompli with a sting in the tail. There are over 1,400 EU geographical indications, many of them wines and spirits that were bundled into the existing EU-Canada Wines and Spirits Agreement, which […]
Our most environmentally valuable farmland is condemned to a slow death by a combination of EU bureaucracy and national decisions. CAP’s so called greening ties up farmers in bureaucracy, uses valuable public money and still fails to protect nature or the incomes of farmers in marginalised areas adequately. There are however solutions. […]
Europe’s strongest economy is seeing its farming sector decimated. At an incredibly rapid rate, both the number of farmers and the income of those left farming is nose diving. Why is this happening and what can – or will – be done? […]
The European Milk Board calls for a European Union that acts in favour of the common good and well-being of its citizens and shows solidarity while upholding peace and harmony. EU agricultural policy cannot be used as a tool to pit European producers against each other! […]
Despite the rhetoric, this CAP is less green than the last one. Here’s why. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention