Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development Ordinary meeting

Name: Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development Ordinary meeting
Uploaded: 2026-09-02T12:30:00+00:00
Duration: 3049 s

05:04 - 40:06

Veronika Vrecionová

It was adopted. Amendment 74, 75, 76 are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstains?

It was adopted. Amendment 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85. We vote together. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstains? It was rejected. Amendment 86. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstains? It was rejected. Amendment 88, 89, 90, 91 are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstains? It was adopted. Amendment 92. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstains? It was rejected. Amendment 94, 239, 240, 272 are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstains? It was adopted. Amendment 99. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? Please check. I open the vote. Amendment 100. I close the vote.

And it was adopted. Yes, it was adopted. Compromise two. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 102. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? It was rejected. Compromise three. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Compromise 4, who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstained? It was adopted. Amendment 118, 120, 116, and 251 are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstained? It was adopted. Amendment 249, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was adopted. Amendment 125, who is in favor? Amendment 125, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was rejected. Okay, please check. I open the vote. I close the vote. It was adopted.

No, it was rejected. It was rejected, it's 20-20. Yes, and compromise 5, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was adopted. Amendment 95, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted.

Amendment 257, who is in favor? Who is against? Okay, I wait. 257, who is in favor? Again, please.

I repeat it. Amendment 257, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted.

Amendment 132, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Amendment 135, who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Amendment 134, who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstained? I think it was rejected, but please check it. I open the vote. Amendment 134. I close the vote.

We have to repeat it because we don't have it now on machine. Please repeat. Amendment 134, I open the vote. I close the vote. It was adopted.

Compromise 6, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Amendment 147, who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Amendment 152, who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstained? It was adopted. Compromise 7, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was adopted. Amendment 268 part 1, and 165, and 172 are identical.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 175, who is in favor?

175, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was rejected. Amendment 268, split vote part 2 of 2, who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 166 and 178 are identical, who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? Please check, I open the vote. Amendment 166 and 178. I close the vote. It was adopted.

Compromise 8, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 51, who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 195, who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? It was rejected. Amendment 199 and 200 are identical, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain?

It was adopted. Amendment 196, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted.

Amendment 198, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 271, who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Compromise 9, who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 48, who is in favor? Could you repeat please, who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? It was rejected. Amendment 49, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain?

It was rejected. Amendment 52, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted.

Amendment 16, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Okay, let's check.

It's amendment 16, 1-6. I open the vote. I close the vote. It was rejected. Amendment 17, 1-7, who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstain? Please check again, I open the vote, amendment 17. I close the vote. It was adopted.

Amendment 18, 1-8, who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was rejected. Amendment 19, who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstain? It was rejected. Amendment 20, 2-0, who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? Please check, I open the vote, amendment 20.

I open the vote. Amendment 20. I open the vote. Still two MEPs. Still two MEPs.

Okay, it's... I close the vote. And it was rejected. Amendment 21. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Amendment 23. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was rejected. Amendment 24. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. It was adopted, sorry. It was adopted.

Amendment 25. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was rejected.

Amendment 36. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted.

Amendment 37. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted.

Amendment 40. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was... please, I think it was rejected, but I want to check.

I open the vote. Amendment 40. I close the vote. And it was rejected. Amendment 44.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was rejected. Amendment 45.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. And now roll-call vote, final vote.

I open the vote. I close the vote. And it was adopted. Thank you. Now the next vote is general budget for year 27.

And I just ask my colleague to help me here. And we can start. First will be compromise 1. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstained? It was adopted. Compromise 2. Who is in favor? Could you show better your hand?

Compromise 2. I have it like compromise. It's compromise 2. So please, compromise number 2. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Compromise three. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Compromise four. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Compromise five. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Amendment 14, one four. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? Listen, I don't see enough hands. Could you, could you show me? Abstention, okay.

So let's repeat this. Amendment 14. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

Okay, it was rejected. Compromise six. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was adopted. Compromise seven. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was adopted. Compromise eight. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was adopted. Compromise nine. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was adopted. Compromise 10. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was adopted. Amendment 40, four zero. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was rejected. Four, four zero, 40. Okay, let's, let's repeat it if you want. I check, let's check it. Amendment 40, four zero.

I open the vote. I close the vote. It was rejected. Amendment 41, four one. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was rejected. Compromise 14. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? Please, I want to check it because I really could saw only few hands. Compromise 14. I open the vote.

I close the vote. And it was adopted. It was adopted. Compromise 15. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who abstained? It was adopted. Amendment 49, four nine. Who is in favor?

Who is against? Who please check. Amendment 49, four nine. I open the vote. I close the vote.

And it was rejected. Compromise 16. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstained?

It was adopted. Compromise 17.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Compromise 18.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 65, 6-5.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was rejected. Compromise 21.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 69.

Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was rejected. And now roll-call vote, final vote.

I open the vote. I close the vote. And it was adopted. Thank you very much. And now last item of today voting, and it will be agreement...

Oh, sorry, here is second one, yes, second one of the budget, amendments. Okay. It's amendment 1 and 2, they are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? And it was adopted. Amendment 3 and 4 are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? It was adopted. Amendment 5. Who is in favor? Who is against?

Who abstain? Please check. I open the vote, amendment 5. I close the vote. And it was rejected.

Amendment 7. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was rejected.

Amendment 6. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted.

Amendment 11, 1-1. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was rejected.

And amendment 10 and 12 are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted.

And amendment 14 and 15 are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted.

Amendment 16 and 17 are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted.

Amendment 18 and 19 are identical. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted.

Amendment 20 and 21. Who is in favor? Who is against? Who abstain? It was adopted.

Okay, if you want check, it was amendment 22, 2-2. I open the vote.

I close the vote. And it was rejected. And we have no final vote. And now we just go to the last item of the voting and it's temporary agreement with Armenia and it's just single vote, roll call vote. I open the vote.

I close the vote. And it was adopted. So thank you very much, colleagues. And now we have joint meeting with ENVI and it will start what now at three? It starts immediately now in two minutes, please.

We just thank you.

So dear colleagues, I would like to ask you to take a seat. I know that after summer break you have a lot of discussion, but please we have to start with our program. So, let's start. First I have here these first technical, let's say, items. Adoption of agenda is the first item, and if I don't see any objection, I think it was approved.

And the second item is chair's announcement. First I would like to inform you that we have interpretation to 21 languages, but I also now would like to thanks really a lot to all our interpreters as well as technical staff and of course all our colleagues for both committee for organizing this meeting today. And the second information is that the electronic meeting is webstreamed. And now let's start with public hearing. Now we turn to our attention to this public hearing of the simplifying EU rules on food and feed safety.

This hearing is organized jointly with the ENVI committee and I really warmly welcome here all ENVI members who are present today. As part of the cross-cutting simplification package announced last year, the Commission has adopted the food and feed simplification omnibus. It entails many changes to various area of changing rules, of all, all of which have significant implication for European farmers. The purpose of today's hearing is to bring together stakeholders across the agri sector reflecting the wide-ranging scope of the omnibus to provide their views on the proposed changes. As set out in the program, we will have discussion between the experts and members in two panels.

The first to provide the scientific perspective and the second to perspective of practitioners in the field. After the panel discussion, we will hear statement from the Commission and the European Food Safety Authority to provide the broader context. Before we begin, I would like to warmly welcome all our experts. Thank you for being with us and for addressing our questions. Now I give the floor to my fellow ENVI chair who will introduce the first panel discussion.

So please, the floor is yours.

40:06 - 42:08

Pierfrancesco Maran

Thank you, dear Veronika, and I'm delighted to be here today to chair this important public hearing and the first panel discussion. I would like to emphasize that public hearings are an important part of Parliament's work, as they allow for different perspective to be heard and scrutinized. In fact, the hearing is just one step in the broader public and parliamentary debate on the Food and Feed Safety Omnibus. The negotiation among the political groups in the joint committee on the Food and Feed Omnibus are only at the beginning. I'm confident that in assessing and debating the Commission's proposal, members will take into account the contribution by the speaker of this public hearing, as well as the point of view of environmental organizations, scientists, and other expert.

I would like now to begin with the panel one, entitled Scientific Challenges and Opportunities of the Food and Feed Omnibus, and I would also like to thank our expert for attending this hearing today and the public for joining us, either in the room or online. Our expert in this panel are Mrs. Anne-Katrin Mahlein, director of the Institute of Sugar Beet Research in Göttingen, Mrs. Milvia Miccolis, associate professor from the Department of Soil, Plant and Food Sciences, Plant Pathology Section at the University of Bari, Mrs. Martina Vijver, professor and scientific director, Institute of Environmental Sciences at Leiden University. We start with Mrs. Mahlein that is connected remotely, so we check if the connection is good.

42:08 - 42:09

42:09 - 48:27

Anne-Katrin Mahlein

Yeah. Thank you, Mrs. Mahlein, the floor is yours.

Yeah, thank you very much for the opportunity to express my opinion on the current situation on plant protection in crop production. Within the next minutes, I will share my thoughts as a phytopathologist on this topic with you. Next slide. Next slide. Plant protection and by this crop production in Europe is extremely under pressure.

The reason for that are manifold. In multiple regions in Europe, we observe an increased disease pressure with well-known pests and diseases, but also with new pests and diseases. Here especially insect pests and insects as vectors of viruses and bacteria are very problematic. For this reason, the phenomenon are complex, but changing climate conditions definitely play a significant role. Furthermore, we observe resistance of pathogens to pesticides and in parallel loss of resistances in crop varieties.

That's the biological part of the story. At the same time, however, we also have lost a high number of active ingredients due to expiring registration. For multiple pests and diseases, nearly no treatment options do exist and alternatives from integrated pest managements are also missing. But this is crucial. We need a consistent implementation of all options of integrated plant production, including sustainable use of low-risk pesticides.

To stabilize the situation and to enable innovation, a clear, time-efficient and transparent procedure for the approval of pesticides is crucial. Next slide. The situation is alarming. On this slide, I brought you examples from sugar beet.

You see approved active ingredients over the years from 2011 until today. The active ingredients are listed by the groups herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. And you can see in blue the approved active ingredients and in red that the active ingredient is not improved or allowed to use. Since 2019, a dramatic loss of active ingredients took place, only few products are left. With such a situation, resistant management is nearly not possible because at the same time non-chemical alternatives or biological products are not available or not effective enough.

Yield protection and crop productivity by thus is difficult. Next slide. This results in a precarious situation for the farmer with many uncertainties and an increasing dependence on emergency permissions over all crops and production systems, as you can see here. There has been a dramatic increase in emergency permissions since 2020 and this trend continues. A totally new situation, especially for feed crops like sugar beet, oilseed rape or wheat.

Next slide. However, in all production systems, more and more emerging pests and diseases pose a threat to production. Some recent examples are shown on this slide. A dramatic epidemic in several crops like potato, sugar beet and vegetables is caused each year since 2023 by the reed grass cicade transmitting a disease called syndrome basses richesses. In potato, we have damaging epidemiological factors caused by Phytophthora infestans.

Viticulture is affected by Flavescence dorée. A new pest like the Japanese beetle or the beet weevil are causing concerns at the farmers, the advisory service and authorities. Crop production is also an economic risk for our farmers and supply with high-quality food and feed is at risk. Next slide. The European Union must act urgently in agreeing on an effective Omnibus 10.

This is clear, the current system does not meet the requirements and will be not easy to overcome the backlog. It takes courage and sustainable solutions. We need both, an effective and focused review of old active ingredients and a fast evaluation of new innovative active ingredients. Biological alternatives are important, but their potential must be evaluated in a realistic way. Administrative processes must be supported by digital routines and artificial intelligence to overcome the backlog.

In parallel, Article 47 must be taken seriously, no ban of pesticides without alternatives. Here also economic and ecological aspects and resistance management must be considered. If risk mitigation strategies can be implemented in agriculture practices, like spot spraying or similar, it should be considered. Next slide. Furthermore, a prioritized evaluation of new active ingredients is necessary, while old active ingredients should be re-evaluated in a fair and context-specific way.

For both groups, risk-based assessment with scientific-based thresholds would support a transparent procedure for all stakeholders. The entire process would benefit from a focused review of specific parameters and a data call-in for specific other relevant parameters, which are relevant for the re-evaluation. We also should act future-orientated and as stated before, risk mitigation by digital technologies offers also the potential to design registration processes in a new way. If, for example, a permission is coupled with a specific spot-spraying technology, both can be achieved: reduction of pesticides application and low risk while safeguarding yield. I conclude my statement with a clear call for more research funding.

We must be at the forefront of research to strength our agriculture with sustainable alternatives from digitalization, RNAi technologies and new cropping systems. Thank you for your attention.

48:27 - 48:38

Pierfrancesco Maran

Thank you so much. The next speaker, she's Milvia Micris, she's in presence.

48:38 - 50:39

Milvia Miccolis

Buon pomeriggio e grazie per questo invito, per me è davvero un piacere essere qui oggi. Io sono, parlo, intervengo in qualità di fitopatologa con un'esperienza nella protezione delle colture. E proprio in questo settore della protezione delle colture abbiamo una forte esigenza, una sfida che è continua, che è quella di dover allo stesso tempo garantire elevati livelli di tutela della salute e dell'ambiente, ma nello stesso tempo dover garantire agli agricoltori di poter proteggere le loro colture con degli strumenti che siano efficaci, sicuri, sempre più sostenibili. Io credo che questo intervento di semplificazione della delle procedure normative relative alla sicurezza degli alimenti e dei mangimi possa andare in questa direzione e quindi aiutare in questo senso a sopperire a queste esigenze. E riguardo ad alcuni aspetti, andrei avanti con le slide se possibile.

Riguardo a questi aspetti, sicuramente una delle dei più significativi interventi riguarda la questione sicuramente importante della reciprocità, ancora oltre grazie, ancora la slide successiva. E quindi gli aspetti relativi alla reciprocità e ai limiti massimi dei residui nei prodotti importati dai paesi terzi. La situazione attuale è che il sistema europeo in realtà pone, prevede dei limiti simili per gli agricoltori gli agricoltori europei e quelli i prodotti che arrivano dai paesi terzi. Ma in realtà le tolleranze sono previste, esistono delle tolleranze all'importazione per cui possono esistere, possono essere concesse, possono rinvenirsi residui di prodotti non più autorizzati nell'Unione Europea purché questi limiti, questi non superino dei limiti considerati come sicuri a seguito basandosi su ovviamente una valutazione di rischio. Però la situazione è che sostanzialmente gli agricoltori europei non possono utilizzare delle sostanze per le quali poi si si rinvengono residui per prodotti che entrano nel mercato europeo da paesi terzi.