Agriculture and Fisheries Council

George Eustice Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2017 Written Statements

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

Agriculture and Fisheries Council will take place on 17 and 18 July in Brussels.

As the provisional agenda stands, the primary focus for fisheries will be a presentation by the Commission on the state of play of the common fisheries policy and consultation on the fishing opportunities for 2018.

On agriculture, there will be a debrief on the outcome of the recent trilogue discussions concerning the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on organic production and labelling of organic products.

The Council will also exchange views on modernising and simplifying the common agricultural policy, implementation of the May 2015 Council conclusions, trade-related agricultural issues and wine labelling.

The Estonian presidency, whose presidency term commenced on 1 July, will present their six-month work programme to the Council.

There are currently 11 items scheduled under any other business:

A European One Health Action Plan against antimicrobial resistance (tabled by the Commission).

African swine fever: state of play (tabled by the Commission).

Symposium on the future of food in the EU (Brussels, 27 June 2017) (tabled by the Maltese, Slovak and Netherlands delegations).

The consequences of the mandatory food origin labelling on the internal market (tabled by the Belgian delegation).

Meeting on dual quality of foodstuffs (Bratislava, 30 May 2017) (tabled by the Slovak delegation).

Dual quality of foodstuffs—presentation of the latest study (tabled by the Czech delegation).

Meeting of the Ministers of agriculture of the Visegrad Group countries and Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia (Nadarzyn near Warsaw, 2 June 2017) (tabled by the Polish delegation).

Trade practices applied by third countries vis-a-vis EU-responsible EU member states (tabled by the Czech delegation).

International ministerial conference on “GMO free agriculture: a chance for rural development in Central and South Eastern Europe” (Vienna, 9-10 May 2017) (tabled by the Austrian delegation).

AU-EU agriculture ministerial conference on “Making Sustainable Agriculture a Future for Youth in Africa” (Rome, 2 July 2017) (tabled by the Commission).

Drought in Portugal (tabled by the Portuguese delegation).

Until exit negotiations are concluded, the UK remains a full member of the European Union and all the rights and obligations of EU membership remain in force. The outcome of these negotiations will determine what arrangements apply in relation to EU legislation in future once the UK has left the EU.

[HCWS42]