Gilles PENNELLE

Policy topics Gilles PENNELLE is active on

What Gilles PENNELLE has said (80)

• 2026-06-17 “(10:00:09 – 10:01:17): Our farmers are used to bad news from Brussels. The CAP budget has been cut. There are free trade agreements, and they've just heard that we will start negotiations for Ukraine to join the EU. Ukraine is an agricultural giant, and there's already an association agreement between them and the EU, and this promotes unfair competition. If Ukraine joins the EU, this would be a complete disaster for our farmers in a single market. There would be unfair competition when it comes to a lot of products, and they wouldn't meet our standards either. And given the current CAP situation, there would be a 20% drop in CAP funds because Ukraine would get the lion's share of the CAP. We now know that agriculture wasn't a priority for the EU, but we now know that they want to kill it off.”
  Agricultural trade: Ukraine imports
• 2026-02-23 “E-000737/2026 Answer given by Mr Šefčovič on behalf of the European Commission Following the Australian elections in May 2025, the President of the Commission and the Prime Minister of Australia agreed to resume stock taking discussions on the EU-Australia Free Trade Agreement. Further to series of technical meetings and political level engagement in Brussels, the negotiations were finally concluded on 24 March 2026 on the occasion of the President of the Commission’s visit to Australia 1 . The Commission has been clear with Australia that the EU’s agricultural sensitivities not only remain but have heightened compared to 2023. On the other hand, the red meat sector, namely beef and sheep meat, has been Australia’s top offensive interest in agriculture, and overall in the negotiations, which has required a very careful handling. A very limited and controlled opening of the EU’s agricultural market, including sustainability requirements, combined with new export opportunities by eliminating tariffs on EU exports to Australia and by protecting geographical indications, represents a balanced outcome for the EU’s agricultural sector. For the most sensitive products the full volume of opening is very small, accounting for only a fraction of EU consumption (e.g. a quota of 30 600 tonnes for beef, representing around 0.5% of EU consumption; a quota of 25 000 tonnes for sheep meat, representing around 4% of EU consumption) and will be phased in over 10 and 7 years, respectively. The Commission has also secured a bilateral safeguard clause covering the most sensitive agricultural products to address any unexpected disturbances. The possible impact of the agreement was addressed in the context of the 2024 update of the study on the cumulative economic impact of trade agreements on EU agriculture 2 . 1 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ac_26_762. 2 https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC135540.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU · Free trade agreements (FTAs)
• 2025-11-06 “E-004396/2025 Answer given by Mr Hansen on behalf of the European Commission A free trade agreement with India would be an important element to strengthen the EU's trade relations with a key partner. The sensitivity of the EU sugar sector has long been recognised. In 2019, the High-Level Group (HLG) on Sugar recommended that sugar continue to be treated as a sensitive product in trade negotiations with major sugar-producing countries, in order to safeguard the competitiveness and resilience of the EU sugar sector. In 2023, the Commission conducted a ‘Trade Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA)’, including a dedicated case study to analyse the impact of a future EU-INDIA Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on employment and respect for labour and environmental standards in agriculture, notably in the sugar sector. Moreover, the Commission updated in 2024 its study presenting the cumulative impact on the EU agricultural markets of a series of FTAs concluded or under negotiation between the EU and nine countries, including India 1 . The study emphasises the sensitivity of some products, such as sugar. EU sugar producers also expressed their serious concerns regarding the possible inclusion of sugar in the ongoing EU-India trade negotiations. Based on the conclusions and recommendations of the HLG on Sugar and the SIA, as well as the study on the cumulative impact, and the concerns raised by the sector, the Commission has given due care to the sensitivity of the sugar sector in line with its commitment to address the specific sensitivities of the EU sugar sector in all its FTA negotiations. 1 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1001.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU · Free trade agreements (FTAs)
• 2025-11-04 “E-004311/2025 Answer given by Mr Šefčovič on behalf of the European Commission The Commission is aware of the importance of the Chinese market for EU exporters and of the severe impact the recently imposed duties have for EU producers. Since the start of each investigation, it has intervened as interested party to defend the interests of the EU producers subject to these investigations: at technical level as well as at political level where these unwarranted investigations and measures are regularly brought up with the Chinese counterpart. While the Commission’s interventions together with those of industry and individual Member States have achieved a reduction of the definitive measures on European pork and brandy compared to the provisional measures imposed, the Commission continues to explore all options to protect the interests of the EU industry, also in view of the compliance by China with its obligations as member of the World Trade Organization. The Commission will continue to monitor the economic impact of the Chinese duties on the affected sectors in the EU. If needed, steps may be taken to respond to market disturbances through EU measures financed under the agricultural reserve. The Commission is seeking to rebalance EU’s trade and investment relations with China on the basis of transparency, predictability and reciprocity. The Commission will continue to engage constructively – for example through the upgraded Export Control Dialogue and technical talks on market access – but where engagement does not deliver, the Commission will not hesitate to defend EU industry and make use of EU autonomous instruments.”
  Trade relations with China · Export of EU agri-food products
• 2025-05-06 “E-001813/2025 Answer given by Mr Hansen on behalf of the European Commission The EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement (EMPA) protects 344 EU geographical indications (GIs), including the term ‘Pruneaux d'Agen’, in the four Mercosur countries. The Commission can confirm that the level of protection for these EU GIs under the EMPA is comparable to the high level of protection in the EU. During a transition period of 10 years following the entry into force of the EMPA, specific rules would apply for terms ‘D'Agen’ or ‘Ciruela D'Agen’. In this framework, only legitimate prior users may use these terms in the Mercosur countries if accompanied by clear indication of the geographical origin to avoid any confusion with the placing on the market of ‘Pruneaux d´Agen’ produced in France. There is no evidence based on available impact studies of the EMPA that agriculture in the EU or in France would be affected by massive imports of agricultural products from South America. The EU’s sanitary and phytosanitary standards fully apply to imported products, which must always comply with the EU’s stringent food safety requirements including maximum residue limits for pesticides. This applies regardless of trade agreements with third countries, including Mercosur. As outlined in the Commission’s Communication ‘A Vision for Agriculture and Food’ of 19 February 2025 1 , the EU will strive toward fairer global level playing field for agriculture. The Commission will pursue, in line with international rules, a stronger alignment of production standards applied to imported products, including on pesticides. 1 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – A vision for Agriculture and Food. Shaping together an attractive farming and agri-food sector for future generations, COM/2025/75 final, https://eurlex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52025DC0075.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU · Trade relations with Mercosur · EU policy on country of origin food labelling
• 2025-05-05 “E-001805/2025 Answer given by Mr Várhelyi on behalf of the European Commission 1. Pursuant to Article 26(3) of Regulation No 1169/2011 1 , where the country of origin or place of provenance of a food is given and it is not the same as that of its primary ingredient, the country of origin or place of provenance of the primary ingredient in question needs also to be declared or, at least, indicated as being different to that of the food. 2. Article 26(3) first subparagraph of the Regulation No 1169/2011 sets out conditions for the application of specific labelling requirements for primary ingredients. Where food business operators opt to only indicate the country of origin or place of provenance of the primary ingredient as being different to that of the food, for example because of multiple or variable supply sources and particular production processes, the rules stipulated by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/775 2 are to be followed. The relevant indication should ensure comprehensible information to the consumer. 1 Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, amending Regulations (EC) No 1924/2006 and (EC) No 1925/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council, and repealing Commission Directive 87/250/EEC, Council Directive 90/496/EEC, Commission Directive 1999/10/EC, Directive 2000/13/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, Commission Directives 2002/67/EC and 2008/5/EC and Commission Regulation (EC) No 608/2004 OJ L 304, 22.11.2011, p. 18–63. 2 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/775 of 28 May 2018 laying down rules for the application of Article 26(3) of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the provision of food information to consumers, as regards the rules for indicating the country of origin or place of provenance of the primary ingredient of a food OJ L 131, 29.5.2018, p. 8–11.”
  EU policy on country of origin food labelling
• 2025-03-20 “E-001192/2025 Answer given by Mr Šefčovič on behalf of the European Commission The Commission regrets the decision of the United States (US) to impose tariffs on EU exports of steel and aluminium on 12 March 2025. The Commission sees no justification for these tariffs. The Commission has emphasised to the US its wish to work together to address global overcapacities in these sectors and that the EU is not the problem - but is part of the solution. The Commission’s policy for the promotion of agricultural products allows specific promotion arrangements in case the markets would be disturbed. The recently published Commission legislative proposal to support the wine sector 1 , includes an amendment to increase the duration of support for promotion operations under wine sectorial interventions, to allow for better market consolidation. The Commission has also removed all the alcoholic products which were part of the package of countermeasures to the US steel and aluminium tariffs and of the published list for consultation. This includes bourbon, wine, and other spirits. The current exclusion keeps space for de-escalation and preserves room for negotiation. However, the Commission remains fully committed to defending its interests. Finally, in light of the decision by the US to delay by 90 days its country-specific universal tariffs on EU exports at a level of 20%, the EU has decided to put its countermeasures on EUR 21 billion of US exports on hold for the same length of time. The Commission’s priority remains to achieve a mutually beneficial negotiated solution. 1 COM(2025) 137 final, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52025PC0137”
  EU-US trade relations · Export of EU agri-food products
• 2025-03-13 “P-001086/2025 Answer given by Mr Hansen on behalf of the European Commission The Commission remains committed to the objectives of reducing the overall use and risk of chemical pesticides, cutting nutrient losses, reducing overall EU sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals and in aquaculture, and increasing the level of organic farming as well as organic aquaculture. The Vision for Agriculture and Food 1 underlines that farmers need appropriate support of various kinds to help them make their contribution to achieving these objectives – in an approach which addresses the need for environmental, economic and social sustainability. The quantified targets referred to by the Honourable Members are not legally binding. However, the underlying indicators are part of the Commission’s established set of context indicators on the Common Agricultural Policy 2 , and on that basis will continue to be monitored alongside the Commission’s various other indicators which relate to the farming and food sectors. Regarding animal transport, on 7 December 2023, the Commission adopted a proposal 3 for a new Regulation on the protection of animals during transport. This proposal is now being examined by the European Parliament and the Council. 1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025DC0075 2 https://agridata.ec.europa.eu/extensions/DataPortal/context_indicators.html 3 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2023:770:FIN”
  Reduction targets for pesticides · Use of fertilisers
• 2025-02-05 “E-000525/2025 Answer given by Mr Kadis on behalf of the European Commission 1. The Commission is aware of the serious problems that the spider crab (Maja squinado) is causing in various coastal areas of France, particularly in Northern Brittany. The Member State authorities can decide how and when to provide financial support to mussel farmers affected by the proliferation of certain species through their European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) programme. This can include measures for tackling the spread of the species, as well as directly supporting producers for example with cleaning or repairing equipment. Furthermore, the Member State can also support more structural actions like mutual funds, insurance instruments or other collective schemes, which enhance the capacity of the sector to manage risks and respond to adverse events. Besides EMFAF support, the Member State may also decide to support mussel farmers under the sectorial State aid rules 1 , including the de minimis Regulation 2 . For more information on the national/regional support measures that can be provided under the French EMFAF programme, we refer the Honourable Member to the EMFAF managing authority in the Member State 3 . 2. The Commission is aware that mollusc production in the EU, including in France, is facing important challenges, including damage by proliferating predators. While the Commission is aware that France is already taking some steps to address the situation (e.g. the launch of the project Spider by Ifremer), it will follow closely the situation and support the French authorities as necessary. 1 Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/2473 of 14 December 2022 declaring certain categories of aid to undertakings active in the production, processing and marketing of fishery and aquaculture products compatible with the internal market (OJ L 327, 21.12.2022, p. 82–139); Commission Guidelines for State aid in the fishery and aquaculture sector (OJ C 107, 23.3.2023, p. 1–48). 2 Commission Regulation (EU) No 717/2014 of 27 June 2014 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid in the fishery and aquaculture sector (OJ L 190, 28.6.2014, p. 45–54), as amended. 3 Direction générale des affaires maritimes, de la pêche et de l’aquaculture – DGAMPA.”
  Environmental regulation of fisheries · Funding for fisheries and aquaculture
• 2024-12-05 “E-002777/2024 Answer given by Mr Šefčovič on behalf of the European Commission In order to reconcile the need to make meaningful concessions to EU’s partners with the preservation of the interests and the livelihood of European farmers, the Commission negotiated clear limits to the requests by Mercosur to open the beef, poultry and sugar markets. Tariff rate quota volumes in the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement were therefore carefully calibrated to take account of conditions in the relevant agricultural market and the cumulative impact effects originating from other free trade agreements 1 . For beef, the tariff rate quotas negotiated under the agreement have been kept within limits at an overall volume of 99 000 tons, of which 55% is reserved for fresh meat. In addition, this quota with a reduced tariff rate of 7.5% will be phased in over a period of seven years. Transparency towards the European Parliament is and will remain a priority for the Commission, notably as regards the Mercosur Agreement. In the past legislature (2019-2024), the Commission informed the European Parliament on these negotiations on a regular and frequent basis, namely at 14 monitoring groups and two technical briefings and provided the state of play in 10 committees or delegation meetings other than the International Trade Committee. More than 40 bilateral meetings were also held with individual Members of the European Parliament or with political groups. The Trade and Economic Security Commissioner provided an extensive brief on the content of the Agreement at the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on 30 January 2025 and at the European Parliament plenary on 13 February 2025 and declared his intention to continue this dialogue during the ratification process. 1 Ferrari, E., Elleby, C., De Jong, B., M`barek, R. and Perez Dominguez, I., Cumulative economic impact of upcoming trade agreements on EU agriculture, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2024, doi:10.2760/54976, JRC135540.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur · Import of agri-food products in the EU
• 2024-11-20 “P-002595/2024 Answer given by Mr Šefčovič on behalf of the European Commission The procedure for the adoption of the EU-Mercosur agreement, including voting procedure at the Council, will depend on the content of the final agreement, which in turn determines its legal basis and nature. After a final political agreement has been reached between the EU and Mercosur in December 2024, the Commission will transmit a proposal to the European Parliament and the Council for signature and conclusion of the agreement. In that context, the Commission will present its proposal for the legal basis and architecture of the deal in line with the Treaties. According to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFUE), the following procedures for the adoption have been used in the past for similar multilateral agreements: i) a ‘mixed agreement’ that requires the approval by the EU (i.e. Parliament and Council ) and all its Member States on the whole agreement before it can fully enter into force, with the possibility for provisional application of parts that are of EU exclusive competence; and ii) a single political package of two legally separated agreements that are ideally to be signed in parallel: one ‘mixed’ framework agreement, requiring the approval by the EU and all its Member States before it can fully enter into force, and an interim trade agreement covering provisions falling under the exclusive competence of the EU, which would only require ratification on the part of the EU. In this respect, it is worth noting that in line with the principles of the TFUE and namely its Articles 207 and 218, with regard to trade agreements, the Council shall act by a qualified majority throughout the procedure.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU · Trade relations with Mercosur
• 2024-11-05 “E-002409/2024 Answer given by Mr Hansen on behalf of the European Commission According to the data collected at the border through the system TRACES, only 5% of the total imports in volume of organic products come from equivalent third countries. The supervision put in place by the Commission on equivalent third countries encompasses various actions, including annual reporting supervision exercises, yearly meetings to discuss regulatory matters, non-conformities and possible shortcomings of the sector, beside on-thespot visits. For this purpose, very strong administrative cooperation has been set up with most of the third countries. In the last years Canada, the United States, Japan, Costa Rica, Argentina and Australia have been visited. Moreover, reports on audits conducted in third countries recognised as equivalent, are available on the dedicated Commission webpage 1 . 1 https://ec.europa.eu/food/audits-analysis/audit-report”
  GMOs
• 2024-09-27 “E-001847/2024 Answer given by Mr Wojciechowski on behalf of the European Commission The entry price system (EPS) applies to 15 fruits and vegetables, including fresh tomatoes, since 1995 as a result of the outcome of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Uruguay Round negotiations. For each of these products, the levels of the entry prices, which vary according to the products and the periods, were and remain fixed in the EU’s WTO schedule and are reflected in the EU’s common customs tariff. Any changes to EPS would require comprehensive market access negotiations at WTO. The import into the EU of fresh tomatoes from Morocco is regulated by the 2012 bilateral agreement concerning reciprocal liberalisation measures on agricultural products which provides, inter-alia, a reduced preferential entry price from October to May of EUR 0.461/kilogram. This applies to all kinds of fresh tomatoes. Since then, trade statistics show that the average import unit value of fresh tomatoes from Morocco has been increasing, recently reaching an average value of EUR 1.85/kilogram. Within the current system, tomatoes are cleared through customs based on the invoice price, if available, or the Standard Import Value (SIV). SIV is published daily by the Commission. It is per product (and not varieties) and per country of origin and calculated on the basis of representative prices of imported products notified by Member States to the Commission pursuant to Article 74 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/891 1 . The Commission does not currently intend to amend the implementation of the EPS as it is currently in place. However, from 1 January 2025, three new codes will be created in the Combined Nomenclature to better monitor trade, especially to distinguish between cherry and other tomatoes. 1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32017R0891”
  GMOs
• “Thank you. The commission's software is has been under out of date. They seem to be attached to the dogma of free trade over their borders, and the European Union doesn't seem to see that the world has changed the great powers, like the United States and China of protecting their economies. They've moved away from free trade. But we want free trade with Mercosur and Ukraine, and that's going to affect our agriculture. And to all of this. And with the free trade agreement with South Africa, New Zealand and Morocco. Sell German cars seems to be the only objective of the European Union who sacrificed a wine, French wine and spirits? Mrs. von der Leyen is not in a position to be able to have this fight with the United States and to be able to protect our economy. I think we have to write a new page in the history of the European Union, but without Mrs.. Von der Leyen.”
  Free trade agreements (FTAs)
• “Thank you. Yet another body that is going to observe what we observe and tell us what we already know, which is that farmers are losing out in this food chain. And this is true across of the across the EU member states and of course, the big players in the chain have massive profits. This observatory draws inspiration from the French observatory for the price and margin setting. And since the observatory has been in place in France, nothing's really been achieved. It hasn't assisted us to improve the income of French farmers. So the creation of this body brings with it no guarantees for our farmers. And it would be more straightforward, as I said to Commissioner Hansen at a previous meeting, to basically ban selling at a loss, at a loss, rather than circumventing and skirting around the problem. We need investigative powers for this observatory, for example, access to the accounting of companies without breaching their, of course, commercial secrecy. Thank you. Ep”
  EU policy on farmer–buyer relations in the agri-food supply chain
• “Yes, indeed. But as I've said on a number of occasions, the EU has to put an end to these free trade agreements. I took the example of cherry tomatoes. Um, how can you expect our tomato producers to compete with tomatoes produced under terrible conditions in Morocco? We can't. I think we've got to put an end to these free trade agreements. We've got to put back on the table. Um, or rather, we've got to tackle processes, major distribution networks and take them on. And in our Member States, we have got to adopt rules that will protect our farmers.”
  Free trade agreements (FTAs)
• “Mr. president. Yes, thank you very much, chairman. Well, we've heard the word strategy and instrument again and again. But we have to be clear here, what's preventing young farmers from getting set up today is the absence of loans and livelihoods. And you've got free trade. You've got unfair competition that's being organised by the European Commission and the European Green Deal, which our farmers simply do not want. It just makes our lives more complicated on a day to day basis. And it's been said already, there's also a smothering bureaucracy. I talked to a beef farmer last week, he said. I spent most of my time in front of my computer, and that's time that I can't spend with my livestock. So all of this distances young people from the possibility of getting set up as a farmer. And what's the main obstacle? It's the European Commission, as run by Mrs. von der Leyen, which is now the main obstacle for young farmers getting set up in business.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “This international crisis once again sheds light on the failure of the European Union's energy policy as Germany and Mr. Weber and other heads of state, such as Macron, have sabotaged and weakened the role of nuclear, which is a source of decarbonised, stable energy. You've therefore increased our reliance on imported fossil fuels, especially gas, and exposed us to geopolitical tensions. Miss von der Leyen recently recognised that sacrificing nuclear energy had been, and I quote, a strategic mistake. One more. Today, our citizens are paying the price in their daily life for that strategic error. The tensions in the Middle East are intensifying. The fertilizer crisis, which is exacerbated by the de-growth policy of the European Union. Food is increasing in price and many farms are threatened with closure. Faced with the international crisis, the European Union policy is lagging behind. We now have to work on our sovereignty and the return to European power. I don't believe you're capable of it.”
  Nuclear energy
• “We have no idea of the extent of the anger that the Mercosur agreement has provoked amongst our farmers, and many in our populations. Madame von der Leyen really didn't wait to see what would happen with Mercosur to announce new trade agreements with India, Malaysia and so on and so on. The big powers, the US and China are protecting their economies, and instead the European Union is launching headlong into free trade. India is a country that we need to respect. They produce the largest number of engineers, but it is also a country that has oceans of manpower ready to compete in our countries. It's time to stop this folly of free trade agreements. Each European Union state should negotiate a bilateral agreement with India, because it is a country which we should obviously cooperate with and trade with. But let's put an end to free trade, which is putting an end to our businesses, our way of life.”
  Free trade agreements (FTAs)
• “Minister, in your initial statement, you didn't address Mercosur. European farmers are in the majority against an agreement. I'd like to hear you talk about animal welfare in Mercosur countries. You talked about free trade agreements. And those that we are currently developing with Ukraine will provide access to new markets or maybe new markets for German car companies, but absolutely not for our farmers. You talked about the future enlargement of the European Union, which will be a total disaster for our farmers and for the Cap. How will you be able to explain to our farmers that by allowing Ukraine into the EU, you will be able to maintain assistance through the cap? Third question is the future cap? My simple question. Are we seeing the end of the Common Agricultural Policy? It's something that the Commission seems to want. A future enlargement will also put an end to it. So my question to you is, are we heading towards the end of the Common Agricultural Policy?”
  Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
• “Thank you very much. France isn't a major olive oil producer, even though I believe that France's olive oil is excellent. But I'd like to put myself in the place of a consumer who walks into the shop and looks through the olive oil on on offer. I'd like to thank the EC for bringing up the problems involved with fraud and the problems with traceability, because at the end of the day, it's the consumer that suffers. It's very difficult to trace and control olive oil. The idea of the origin of a product must not be some vague concept. It has to be something that is tangible and possible to trace from the harvest to the shelf. As my colleague has already mentioned about third countries, especially with regard Tunisia's significant exports to the EU. They aren't very strenuous or stringent controls on those kinds of olive oils.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “Mr. President. Thank you, director, for your work. I would like to mention something which hasn't yet been mentioned and it's a real concern both this is a concern for consumers as well as for farmers. It's the so-called new products. There are those who are trying to destroy our way of life, our consumption of of meat and wine. There are those environmentalists who are trying to destroy a famous French cheese. So we're in a real food transition. This concerns many consumers. There is, for example, the lab grown meat created by the company, gourmet and insect based food as well that the EU is authorizing. There are lots of concerns around health. Consumers, of course, don't know anything about these products. And these are products which are threatening our way of life. Our farmers in our countryside. Thank you.”
  EU policy on novel foods
• “The commission's proposals are unacceptable, unacceptable for farmers who are being ignored here in Brussels, and they're just being looked at through the lens of an Excel table. And then these proposals aren't acceptable for many MEPs here. Often you ignore us. In fact, you blatantly disrespect us. These proposals are also not respectable for the Court of Auditors or for the Eeas who we've just heard from in this report. So how should we interpret the commission? The commission is in an ivory tower. Completely certain of itself. But we've said it on more than one occasion. The commission no longer makes farming a priority, even though it has been a priority since 1962. In fact, do you want to abandon farming? The Brussels technocrats must ensure that we have food. But. But they are bringing food in from outside and it's low quality food.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “Yes. Thank you very much. Chair, just because people are far away, they're often far away from the eyes of Brussels. That's the way it seems. But there are certain characteristics of these outermost regions. And of course, yes, they may be far away. Plenty of them are islands, but also there's the very small size of the local markets. And there's additional production costs, of course. And then there's climate issues, which you have climate events, of course, but I'm thinking mainly about bananas. There's also a lot of of diseases which require specific treatment. France, of course, is very much affected by this file. In our overseas territories, there are big concerns. There are big concerns about pores. Reducing pores, which is already insufficient, would essentially be deadly for our territories and the agriculture in those territories. So therefore, of course, we want those not to disappear, not to be part of a bigger budget heading. That is a very strong demand, of course. I would like to say that, you know, above and beyond the postcards that we have of these outermost regions saying that they're just a tourist hotspots. Most of the people living in these areas live from agriculture. I'm thinking about La Réunion, for instance, in France, 50% of the inhabitants of the region of the island of Réunion live directly or indirectly from agriculture, and they are suffering the ill effects of unfair competition, especially when it comes to banana and sugar for bananas. With Costa Rica, you know, Costa Rica essentially can carry out lots of treatments on their bananas when we can't in our regions because of the, um, the limitations placed on them by the European Union. And this is completely unfair competition, never mind the salary gaps. Now, of course, we need to help these territories. We need to give them a budget. And if you allow me to finish with this comment in the restaurants of the European Parliament, we should not be serving Costa Rican bananas. We should be serving French bananas. Thank you.”
  Funding for OCTs and outermost regions
• “We thank you very much, Madam Chair. Several colleagues have mentioned this important issue, but there are several contradictions. Floral biodiversity is predominantly in permanent grassland, those which are linked to livestock breeding. And these are the areas that you want to reduce. We can't attack livestock even though the commission does this and at the same time and defend pollinators. It's also found in um, in crops such as sunflowers, which is very important for animal feed. Beekeepers in Europe are facing unfair competition from, unfair imports. We have the terrible Mercosur agreement. This will lead to 45,000 tonnes coming onto the market, and pollinators are suffering serious losses. 22% of colonies in France were lost because of the Asian hornet, and this is particularly devastating for farming. Nobody is talking about this because it's much easier just to attack our farmers.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “A while ago, those in favor of a happy globalization, the ultra liberals, um, presiding over the EU institutions, said we should open up our borders to China. They could sell us some t shirts and toys, but we'd keep high tech cars and planes. Where do we stand today? Well, the EU's, uh, software is broken down here. We have a 300 billion deficit per year vis a vis China. China is protecting its markets, taxing our exports. Whereas we have said we don't want to be a great power at seemingly every day, we are imposing a Green Deal on our producers while China imports and uses coal and steel. I'm thinking about Brittany here. Um, there are products such as, uh, pork, which is taxed in China. You have refused to defend our producers and defend your incapable of defending our interests.”
  Trade relations with China
• “The offshore wind farm in France was put under management of the Spanish multinational hydro order. They build this €150 for a megawatt hour, whereas production from a French nuclear power station is €65 for the same quantity of electricity. We should add to this the cost of connecting this wind farm. Wind farm to the to the grid €20 per per unit. And France has announced enormous subsidies flowing to offshore wind farms. These offshore wind farms are a blight on our landscapes and they make life very difficult for our fishers. All these different actors are paying the price of the green ideology and dogmatism which is destroying the European Union. We are undermining our energy sovereignty. We are creating dangers for our users. We are generating enormous profits for multinationals and excessive costs for European citizens. We are opposed to this policy, which I can only describe as madness.”
  Off-shore renewables
• “The reduction of the share of nuclear energy in the energy mix was a strategic error. That was a declaration by Mr. von der Leyen, president of the Commission. We are seeing. That all of this red tape and bureaucracy, the constraints that businesses have been smothered with the Commission, with the complicity of the European Parliament, has been responsible for this. And my country, France is a champion of gold plating. So what? A lot of time wasted how many billions down the drain? It's the philosophy of degrowth that has led this terrible development. Now a farmer has to spend more time on their computer to fill in forms than actually on his tractor. Thanks to the EU, it takes more time to get a construction permit than it actually takes to build the build. The factory that is for this is just bureaucratic madness. We have to return to reality for Europe to make up. The delay that it's suffering because of this overregulation. We will have to break with the ideology of de-growth. Producing is not a dirty word. Let's put an end to the Green Deal, to tech technocratic bureaucracy. Let's stop harassing our farmers, our fishers, our workers. Is the commission up to the challenge? I doubt it very much. It's an arsonist fireman that's not going to be able to put out the fires. It's set.”
  Energy (green transition)
• “The farming crisis is deep and is getting worse. We have moved far away from the spirit of 62. We. That is the cause. And we must therefore turn away from a dogmatic approach. Farmers will not be able to live off their active. If you support unfair trade like the Mercosur agreement. They will not be able to live off their work if you, uh, give them the Green Deal rules time and time again. Farmers are asking for a future cap that has an increased budget, one that is adjusted to inflation and one that is appropriate. Now, this does not seem to be in your future choices, but your will to bring Ukraine into the EU is going to force a collapse in assistance to our farmers. Europe needs a strong farming with quality products and food sovereignty. Our farmers are asking us, asking you to protect them and to be able to produce. Apparently you do not want to support this much.”
  Agricultural trade: Ukraine imports
• “The first concern of our farmers, as we all know, is to have a proper price. In spite of the 2019 directive that contained a certain number of good provisions, we know that in the trade negotiations between producers, major industrialists and our farmers producers, well, it's always the farmers who lose out at the end of the day, in a number of sectors, farmers are selling below cost price and working hard to become impoverished. The EU is organising unfair competition that enables processors and major distribution networks to us to buy cheaper abroad. Um, beef meat or um, cherry tomatoes from Morocco. The, uh regulation of markets the EU introduced some time ago no longer protect farm income. And it's not, unfortunately, this this tweaking that this regulation brings in that's going to make any difference. I think farmers are expecting something very different indeed from Mr..”
  EU policy on farmer–buyer relations in the agri-food supply chain
• “I think the regulation seeks to do away differences between organic produce in the EU and those imported. The equivalence regime was due to end at the end of 26. In the regulation, it says equivalence granted will be maintained for a limited period of time. The rapporteur has said earlier that this is a normal as a renewal or update. That's not at all the case, it is suggested that we make permanent what was due to be provisional and, in other words, favour the import of organic produce that does not comply with the same standards that EU farmers have to work to is not a guarantee of equivalent production. We're not talking about reciprocity in terms of standards. So-called equivalent products can be imported, whereas the costs and the rules of production are not the same. The commission wants to step up the production of organic produce in imports, whereas we're seeing a drop in the sector, in particular in France and a number of member states. There's the dynamic has slowed down as of 2022, with a drop in consumer figures. That has to do with inflation and the drop in purchasing power. The European organic logo can continue to be used under certain conditions for imported products. This to the detriment of to the consumers, in that there is no clear distinction between EU organic products and equivalent organic products that are imported. Therefore, is it really serious to import organic products that in fact will be emitting more greenhouse gases than the conventional agricultural product produced locally?”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “Well, colleague, it seems that you're an ambassador for the Chinese economy. That's not my case at all. China emits 30% of the world's greenhouse gases. The EU seven. And you're continuing to penalize our companies in your policy in this completely unfair competition. And you are defending China. But I'm defending the EU and France.”
  Trade relations with China
• “Two years ago, in this hemicycle, Cycle. Most of the MEPs were voting for the end of combustion engines in 2035. They were inspired by, um, a green ideology. And they. So Europeans were also denying the place of the automotive industry. This was suicidal. The visible consequences are often irreversible and are hitting our economies hard. France has been the object of in-depth studies in which it is stated that 100,000 jobs have always been or are being lost. It is a social and political and economic disaster. The Patriots for Europe has always raised its voice against these, um, uh, policies. The the now, the German chancellor is also raising his voice to lift this ban. This is a proof that a realism always ends up winning in the end, and it is urgent to lift this ban on combustion engines so that Europe may be free to produce and manufacture. This is a question of sovereignty and it is also a question of survival. Let's dare say it.”
  Road transport environmental policy
• “Thank you. I commend the intention, the intention and the work of the rapporteur. We, of course, need to bolster competitiveness in the EU, especially when it comes to the farming sector. However, the Green Deal objectives are still present. Research and innovation, especially in the farming sector, shouldn't be subject to ideological bias. And this green fanaticism, of course we need to innovate, but we need innovation that produces more and better new breeding techniques AI, biotechnology, all of that. And then we need to remove the physical obstacles our farmers are facing. We need to support livestock. We need to boost animal protein production. I would disagree with what we just heard on that. Thank you.”
  New Genomic Techniques
• “For the Patriots group, thank you Commissioner. You raised a number of issues that caused problems for the income of our farmers but you forgot the one that's caused by the EU which is all these free trade agreements which are hitting the income of our farmers. To take a few examples: in Morocco, this is killing the cherry tomatoes trade in France. So Ukraine, we talked about this yesterday, we're killing off the beef sector. And with Mercosur, which you are determined to sign, we'll be hitting the revenues of our farmers hard. And this, you're not fighting those who are taxing our products. You're not fighting back against Trump putting tariffs on our wines and spirits or China putting tariffs on our pork because you prefer in the Commission to favor the export of industrial products, particularly German ones. And the other problem is the increasing production costs. You mentioned the administrative burden briefly but who made this burden? Only the European Union. And then there's the Green Deal which is just shooting ourselves in the foot for farmers. And then farmers are very worried about the announcement of the new CAP. The collapse in the CAP budget will hit farmers' income hard. So in the name of the Patriots, I call on you, as we did yesterday, to revisit this project for a new CAP.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Thank you. Chair, if I may let just come back to what happened last week, the Commission decision to apply Mercosur here in the agri committee. You know, they are working against the agri committee, the parliament, against the sovereignty of this House and against the ECJ. I mean, I agree with what's just been said. This debate is completely ideological. Saying that we're going to get to 25% of cultivated surface from organic farming. That's just a utopia. It's completely unrealistic in reality. And I see what's happening in France. The dairy farmers who started organic want to get out of it, because we want to get to the same price. So let's not talk about utopia. This whole discussion is completely, uh, is not based in reality. So we've understood from this proposal that the commission, at the end of the day, wants to increase imports, whereas we already have a very, very fragile organic, uh, chain system already. Uh, these conditions for importance for imports will, uh, consumers won't be able to clearly differentiate between organic and non-organic. So, uh, Utopia.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “L'union européenne the European Union is facing three challenges where flooded by migration, which threatens our identity, our freedom and our security, as well as the finances of Europeans. And you respond with this migration and asylum pact, which will make us sink even further. We are faced to competitiveness and all it entails. And you answer with the Green Deal and the tsunami of red tape. And when it comes to AI, you speak of frugal AI, You're. You're dreaming so much that you've reached the moon. And of course, the the lack of the very low birth rate is also a problem. And you want to replace Europeans with immigrants. Your program presented very quickly earlier with general generalizations. Do not answer these three challenges, nor the powerlessness that Europeans feel. But the we will be an alternative. We patriots will be working on this.”
  Asylum & border control
• “The reduction of the share of nuclear energy in the energy mix was a strategic error. That was a declaration by Mr. von der Leyen, president of the Commission. We are seeing. That all of this red tape and bureaucracy, the constraints that businesses have been smothered with the Commission, with the complicity of the European Parliament, has been responsible for this. And my country, France is a champion of gold plating. So what? A lot of time wasted how many billions down the drain? It's the philosophy of degrowth that has led this terrible development. Now a farmer has to spend more time on their computer to fill in forms than actually on his tractor. Thanks to the EU, it takes more time to get a construction permit than it actually takes to build the build. The factory that is for this is just bureaucratic madness. We have to return to reality for Europe to make up. The delay that it's suffering because of this overregulation. We will have to break with the ideology of de-growth. Producing is not a dirty word. Let's put an end to the Green Deal, to tech technocratic bureaucracy. Let's stop harassing our farmers, our fishers, our workers. Is the commission up to the challenge? I doubt it very much. It's an arsonist fireman that's not going to be able to put out the fires. It's set.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• “Thank you very much. So we've never had as much surface area since the Middle Ages. The European Commission is dealing with forestry competences, but they shouldn't really interfere too much because they're well managed locally. Now we are trying to apply the Green Deal and restore the nature programmes. We are applying this to our green areas and to our forests With a utopian view of nature. Forests that are. If they're not maintained, then they are dangerous and there can be more forest fires and there can be disease developing. But that's a utopian vision. Stop your bureaucracy and let the national states and the private owners do their work, and they're doing it very well already.”
  Management of EU forests
• “Thank you very much. It's a very great extent. We would share the criticism on this opinion from the European Court of Auditors, because we see that when we look at this draft regulation, we just have the three main errors that we have here. There's no impact assessment. There's a simplification. There's no simplification, rather still no simplification. And thirdly, we just look at ideology. We've discussed this in the agri committee already. And the Patriots had stressed what the Court of Auditors is denouncing. Now that is the absence of indicators showing the impact. The Court of Auditors also correctly points out the weakness of the indicators which show the results. And obviously, 25% of these actions are not covered by any result based indicators. So how can we show that European funds are actually giving rise to sustainable structural changes if we don't have any way of measuring this? The court says this draft regulation may lead to a certain amount of simplification, but Particularly between the Commission and the member states. Where's the real burden? At the national level will remain unchanged. That is the burden on the beneficiaries. And then the problem with cross-cutting objectives by diversity, gender equality and climate change still there. We just keep talking about ideology. We can't get out of that. And that's what the court of Auditors is saying. It says that the climate and environment goals are overestimated. That is what they say. We should rather be looking at competitiveness. But people are afraid of that word. People don't like it. And then the growth of the European economy, which is probably still a swear word for some people. Thank you.”
  Climate efforts
• “Oh, yes. Good afternoon. Colleague. Will, you have said all the things that the EPP finds good about this agreement? But I have a simple question for you. When you go back home, what are you going to do to explain to farmers that this Mercosur agreement is a good one? How are you going to tell them that you're they're there, not facing unfair competition. How will you explain to them that you're putting them up against people who don't respect the same rules? What are you going to say to farmers.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Thank you very much, chair. Well, it's obvious that the war in the Middle East has a very important impact on our farmers, both on fuel and fertilizers. But I'd like to come back to the fertiliser issue. In reality, the European Union shoulders a large amount of responsibility, and even before this war, that was the case. Our behavior, our approach to Russian gas first and foremost, but also in certain member states, such as in France, the ban on exporting. This form of shale gas. Whereas the Americans are exporting shale gas in large amounts and also Cbam. I was the only one here, the only group that voted against this originally. And now we're seeing the price of fertilisers skyrocketing, skyrocketing, while at the same time, this is my fourth point. The European Union has not found itself in a position to assert itself as having autonomy on fertiliser production. The massive crisis in 2022 no lessons been learned.”
  Use of fertilisers
• “I know some people are against growth and they've influenced the commission greatly, but our farmers need fertilisers to ensure our food security. We're familiar with the current crisis and how serious it is. The European Union bears a huge responsibility in the increase in prices. We've sanctioned Russian gas. We've learnt nothing from 2022, the crisis then we've done nothing to have our own production of fertiliser. And now, thanks to this decarbonisation cult, we've taxed, taxed, taxed through the famous Cbam. My group is the only one that didn't vote in favour of that. So when I hear some colleagues today criticising Cbam, I would ask them to look how they voted a while ago. So thank you, Commissioner, for looking at the whole issue of fertilisers. But you're suggesting tiny little measures. Our farmers said this in front of Parliament. This is not enough. They can't even afford to buy fertiliser now for the next harvest. So what we're asking for is the immediate suspension of cbam on fertilisers. We're urgently asking that we create a sovereign fertiliser production sector and to develop a a energy sector on nuclear of nuclear power. So let's turn our back on lack of growth. Let's become a power again, a power for our farmers.”
  Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
• “Thank you chairman. Well, if someone is familiar with soil, it's a farmer. The farmer is a gardener on his land, maintains the soil on a daily basis, and is responsible for the good health of soil. And I'm saying this because Is. Some people still tend to stigmatize them. Say that they're predators. Uh, and we've heard that here and elsewhere. Since day one. The farmer, uh, understood. Back in the Neolithic age, that cultivated soil has to be irrigated and fed. But irrigation is an extremely important issue. And here in this committee, at some point, we need to start thinking about water storage and irrigation, which is going to become increasingly important. And livestock breeding is also a guarantee of good soil quality. You can't reduce a bovine stock for reasons of ideology, for example, but at the same time, um Maintain good soil quality because limiting meadowland is putting other priorities forward and maybe therefore impoverishing soil. Now, organic farming doesn't protect soil more unlike what people have said. Some of the organic inputs are bad for soil as well. So let's trust our farmers. Let's involve them in these living labs that we heard about. We need our farmers. We need a flourishing farming world in our countryside because the less farmers we have, the less healthy our soils will be.”
  Soil protection policy
• “Thank you chair. This meeting comes in the in the context of the work that the commission is doing on the state of EU forests. It wants to take over competence on forests, but it knows that most members have already stated that they are against this transfer of competences. So in its great tradition, the European Commission is taking up this area. It needs to create crises even to take over from Member States competence. And I'll repeat what I've said several times. There's a huge diversity of forests in the EU. We can't compare Finnish forests to Greek or Italian or French forests. States are managing their forests well. In France, for instance, the Forest Service started with 3.3 million hectares. In 40 years. It's grown. That's over. A larger percentage of growth. We need sustainable management of forests in the EU. Colbert in the 17th century already was planting trees to be exploited a century later Without the way that our current technocrats are doing so far, it should not be a Europe wide competence. Not like Kohl, as Coluche said, a great French comedian. Giving technocrats the Sahara would mean that they would need to take CERN to it in a few years time, so leave national states to manage their own forests. Everything is working fine. There should be no EU wide competences on this file. Thank you.”
  Management of EU forests
• “Thank you. We often hear from them. In the countryside there is a great difference between what the farmers are living through and what the institutions talk about. And I think that this report from the commission has proven their point. I do not share this optimism in all areas that we have heard from the Commission. I think that we've got to look at the reality and we've got to actually go out into the field and we'll see that our farmers in the European Union, in France today are actually expressing their discontent. They are angry. Indeed, there are climate problems, but there's also the increase in the input costs, those costs, those prices, which are not necessarily sufficient for them to live off. And there's also international competition and even intra European competition, which affects them. So we've talked about different sectors. I haven't got enough time to go through all of the sectors that were mentioned.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “It's other people's fault. It's Putin's fault. It's Trump's fault. It's China's fault. If food prices increase, the EU refuses to face up to its own responsibilities. If food prices are soaring, it's also related to the inefficient EU energy market. That means that electricity is indexed on gas prices. Producers have to increase prices. If the price of a baguette goes up, it's because bakers are seeing much higher electricity bills. That is the fault of the EU and its policies in the area of energy, and of course, the Green Deal that imposes punitive ideology and leads to higher production costs and higher costs for industry and agriculture. And all of this then trickles down to the consumer. We are seeing, uh, we should take off VAT from food products because feeding yourself is a vital necessity.”
  EU approach to electricity market and prices
• “And your various comments. There is something that you missed out which is in your roadmap. The Cyprus presidency is committed to having the enlargement program agenda, uh, progressing. I'm a country from with 400,000 farmers. Well, we do not want to hear about enlargement in, uh, and Ukraine. It's about enlargement in Ukraine. We know Ukraine has always been a major agricultural country, and the drop of 24% in the. And the bringing in Ukraine would make any agricultural policy of the Europe, um, very difficult. It will be the end of the cap. We cannot bring in agricultural countries that is so large that which has different rules from us. And after Mercosur there would be completely unfair competition. Perhaps you could answer to this because you're saying you want to speed up this process, and we think it should be halted.”
  EU enlargement
• “Thank you. Well, whenever there's a crisis, it seems like everything crawls out from under a stone in the EU. And suddenly all of our weakness is exposed. Now we see weaknesses for fertilisers in Europe, Africa and elsewhere. And finally, the issue of sovereignty raises its head. We had this globalization that a few years ago, everyone was very gung ho about, oh, you haven't got enough of that. Just import some from somewhere else. Fine. Could be a developing country, could be a rich country. But now what's happened when you get a crisis? Both types of country suffer, and it seems like nobody has learned anything from previous crises. Where's the EU strategy for sovereign fertiliser production? I'm still waiting. Been waiting for years. No sign of it yet. Perhaps the European Commissioner will be taking some initiatives over the next few days. Will they deal with the problems? Will they deal with the level of demand? Don't hold your breath. Looking at the crisis now with the Strait of Hormuz in the European Parliament, we voted not we, because not my group, but the carbon border adjustment mechanism was voted through by the rest of the European Parliament. That's going to be a terrible hit for farmers. French farmers were saying. That the cost of cbam for French farmers would be the equivalent of all CAP subsidies €7 billion. So, Mr. Lario, you've told us about action in areas where there is a problem of food insecurity, but you can't just deal with fertilisers through using algae and fish waste and so on. We've got a lot of people living on less than a euro a day. These solutions are not going to be a one size fits all. We need these industrial fertilisers, so we need to learn lessons from crises and strengthen our sovereignty.”
  Use of fertilisers
• “Thank you, Madam. President. We did not have in the European Commission's presentation, probably due to oratorical precautions, to avoid. A Claire Clairmont, a proposal for conditionality, ideas, and the removal of climate obligations. Environmental strategy, at least. My parents don't own noticed that we no longer pronounce the name here. This is a victory for the Patriots' group and Jordan Bardella, who have always fought against this roadmap for croissants for our economy imposed by Madame von der Leyen. Today, you. In addition to last year's simplification, you were ultimately wrong. We have everyone. We are still environmental farmers, but difficulties have been added over the years to us farmers who, unlike what has been done, do not resolve their constraints and administrative tasks. Tractors, and if significantly lengthens the working day, if the Commission, and perhaps. In question, the presence of this fact must not only translate into the grind and a few cosmetic measures. We need to completely restructure the park with amendments towards food production and sovereignty, and break with this idea of ​​the mission, agriculture and the environment, and we will be in the debates on the future to definitely belong to the past.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “Madam president. Thank you. Chair, I don't share the same optimism. I live in a dairy producing area. And I saw the crisis in 2026 and it's very serious. We've seen that the prices have fallen are falling again in 2026, with production projections for the end of the year, which are extremely worrying. Clearly there is too much milk. We've just said this, there's too much of it, but there are also things that we should do. We must intervene on production costs. If prices are not remunerative, we have to drop production costs. Unfortunately, our dairy farmers have invested a lot over in recent years and they have got into debt because of that. I can see this in my local area. A problem is transmission. There are fewer and fewer young people who want to get into this sector because it's a difficult career and these falling prices are extremely worrying. So we have to intervene. We can't just watch these trends. You said that the the aim of the commission is to observe, observe, but it's also to intervene as some member states are calling for. We have to activate the crisis reserves from the cap. There is a real problem with multinationals and how they're controlling the price of milk. Another source of concern we haven't mentioned yet is a Chinese study on European dairy Products and this could end. This could result in customs duties, on milk or on dairy products. We have to help the sector. I remember the dairy sector is an important economic sector for us. It's key for our food security and also to maintain our traditional landscapes, because if we lose our dairy sectors, we'll lose our grasslands, our biodiversity. We have to do everything we can to support the sector because it is indispensable to the European economy.”
  EU policy on farmer–buyer relations in the agri-food supply chain
• “Three weeks out from the end of 2024. Agreement. We have no details on liberalization imports from Ukraine after the 6th of June. Members of the European Parliament are not being kept abreast of developments. We have been shown contempt that will have a bearing on elections in Poland soon. We saw a start to farm protests in Poland. Our farmers do not want to grapple with unfair competition, hundreds of thousands of tons of poultry, sugar and the like being imported, bringing down prices in Europe. And of course, we will have to contend with further imports from Mercosur in future. Sure the Patriots were the only group to oppose this move towards liberalization from the outset, and we would call for an end to liberalization. I would add that the Commission's approach here has been scandalous and shown disregard for Parliament.”
  Agricultural trade: Ukraine imports
• “Thank you very much, chairperson. And thanks to you as well, Executive director. I'll be speaking to you in French, and I represent here today a large number or a great number of French farmers. You know, in France that we have a debate going on right now about for certain, uh, crops, uh, be it, uh, beetroots or others. And these are the products that are responsible for a loss of yield as well. This is a great debate going on in France at the moment, where our farmers, for the moment, are not allowed to produce those products. So they're importing already, uh, sugar from Ukraine or a hazelnut from Turkey. And in the future, we can see that this is going to be happening with countries from Mercosur as well. So I want to ask you some questions. First of all, could you explain how there could actually be such a distortion between the producer countries in terms of the recognition of the dangerous aspect of certain molecules. And what do you think about the prohibition or the ban of this product in France? If we look at the most recent rulings that have come out and the danger that this molecule represents by Efsa as well, and something else that's going on in France, could you confirm for us whether or not acetamiprid, if used obviously at the recommended doses by Efsa, is not cancer causing, as I believe it, as I believe to be the case in the last comment in context where when we talk about agri health issues and they become more and more politicised, we would also quite clearly make make sure that the opinions and decisions by Efsa be exclusively based on science and risk assessment, and not by ideological bias that we are all suffering the negative consequences of. Thank you.”
  EU policy on pesticides
• “The Penel, Penel is my name. Thank you Madam. The risks, even if they're getting worse now, they've always existed but previously our farmers had a harvest in the fields and a harvest in the granary and a harvest in the bank. But it's no longer the case because of the policies that have been conducted in this sector. I think given the management of these—in light of the management of these multiple risks—I think we have to think of strategic storage to ensure food security and as a market regulation too along the lines of what's done in India for example, of what we used to do before the WTL was created. Now we shouldn't blame everything on bad weather. Farmers have less and less means to protect their harvest because the implementation of the Green Deal often entails problems if you, when you add in the national measures, the withdrawal of essential phytocentric measures.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “So we've seen this war in the Middle East, which once again is revealing our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities. Because this crisis obviously is showing that we are completely and hopelessly dependent. We have no strategy to implement a fertiliser production in-house. The best way of confronting this crisis, and indeed future ones as well, because unfortunately, we know we live in a world which is incredibly unstable. The best solution then, to confront these crises is for us to produce our own. I know for some people produce production or to produce is is rude, but that we should be producing our own things and not having to import. We need to link up with other great powers also. Some people see that as a dirty word as well, but more and more the cases that were dependent on other areas because of free trade agreements. We're seeing this with the fertilizer issue in the crisis in the Middle East is just worsening a situation that already existed. The commission should not start talking about the news, watch things as they go by idly, and finally act to show that the commission can help us to regain our independence.”
  Use of fertilisers
• “Thank you. Commissioner, what you said this afternoon is not just a provocation. As the farmers were saying before. And the demonstration, it's also a betrayal. On the sixth, the 16th of July, 2025 will be a date ringed in black on the European calendar. The European Union has demonstrated that farmers are no longer a priority for us. You've abandoned both farmers and our fishers at the same time. You're forcing them to swallow this, um, disastrous Mercosur treaty and fisheries agreements, which will destroy whole swathes of farming and fisheries industry. This major drop in the Cap budget is an absolute disaster. Face up to it. You're not listening to farmers. You're not listening to members of the European Parliament. Let me be clear about this. You are setting our countryside on fire. Our farmers are out bringing the harvest. When the farmers are out bringing the harvest in, we will see growing. Chairman cuts him off.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Mr. president. Madam chair, when we assess policies it's not just about charts and beautiful slides. We need to ask the people on the ground how they feel. So that's the farmers. And this pretty much across the union. Means that people want less red tape. They're facing ever stricter standards, and they're having to compete with countries who don't have the same standards. These national policies introduce some flexibility in some areas. So in the cakes for example. But according to our farmers, this is marginal and insufficient. This additional flexibility has not offset the excessive burden. They spend ever more time sitting in front of their computers and less time on their tractors. So when it comes to assessing our policies, I think we should always listen to what the farmers have to say.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “Uh, this, uh, report once again stigmatizes farmers. They're responsible for everything. They waste water, they pollute water. We need to stop with this narrative. We need to stop supporting the green extremists who, uh, burn, um, police cars in France. Just one example. Brittany. In Brittany, there is a a green. Uh, now, the green algae has been spreading along the coast, and we've been blaming farmers above all, um, pork farmers. And now we've realized today that along the Brittany, um, coastline, it's, uh, water plants, which is responsible. We blamed farmers, but it wasn't just farmers who were responsible for this. Farmers who made huge efforts when it comes to comes to water management. They do not waste water. They need water, they need to store water. And above all, they they need us to stop this stigmatizing us.”
  Water pollution
• “The aim here is laudable. That is pursued under this regulation. How should I put it? It comes across obstacles as a lack of output indicators. You know, the court of auditors highlighted this. How can you prove that European funds are affecting structural change if you don't have the right tools to measure that. In particular, let me stress this point. There's a lack of indicators linked to growth and competitiveness that ought to be our priority in farming. Improving growth and improving competitiveness. Environmental and equality indicators are present, but there's nothing to truly check whether there is growth and a boost to competitiveness. But those two things are essential but sorely lacking. And I see there's far too much focus on de-growth in this text, which needs to be improved.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “Thank you chair. Thank you Commissioner. Thank you for this presentation. These texts, uh, both will improve the future of our farmers. This is essential. Now before moving on to other topics. We need to protect them from competition from third countries, especially free trade agreements. Unfair competition. And we need to prefer EU production, which has been at the heart of the Cap since its inception. And this is what our group would like to suspend the Green Deal. As we've said, the CMO regulation is largely inspired by something that we know very well in France, which is the law one, two and three, an obligation of having a contract and using a mediator. But we know that in France people are not happy with this law. And the spike in inflation has led to large, uh, companies taking over, over small farmers. And it's always farmers who get bread crumbs. Now, I listened very carefully to what you said, Commissioner, and I and I, I'll be closely following. We need to forbid the sale of agricultural products at a loss. We need minimum prices. Otherwise we'll never get out of this issue. But I understand that you want to go down that, uh, route and meet our farmers halfway. Now, this will only be efficient if we guarantee minimum prices and prevent losses. We need to cover the cost of production, and they need to be remunerated. We also. This text is not doing enough for unfair trading within the EU, since not all countries have the same standards. We are very interested in you, uh, helping the right to to competition. But we need to need to look after our farmers. Thank you.”
  EU policy on farmer–buyer relations in the agri-food supply chain
• “Thank you very much. President I listened very closely to the ECA opinion and I agree with the first thing they said. This is a really a real turning point, the first time since 1962. And we had the commission statement back in July, which was like a bomb in the agricultural sector. So I really have a question. Is agriculture still a priority for the European Commission? I would be tempted to say that that is not the case. They want to get rid of the centralisation of the budget, reducing the budget, creating this uncertainty, a lack of creating a lack of visibility. The Commission is showing that agriculture is no longer a priority. And the largest agricultural fair in the world, which took place in Paris, where I didn't meet many ideologists, but people who are listening to farmers and I heard the same news were fed up of bad news from Brussels. We want visibility to create the future oriented sector with our the youth of today. The European Commission is abandoning agriculture, so the European members of Parliament will have to protect farming and agriculture. And you can rely on our group to do our utmost.”
  Agricultural funding
• “Thank you. Livestock farming is in the sights of some in Brussels are the colleges and so on, who are telling us this morning that we shouldn't have any antibiotics for sick animals, but that they are happy to import, uh, this dodgy meat from outside? I'd like to thank the rapporteur for doing a great report on a situation which is concerning us all today. I was recently in the International Livestock Fair in France. I met all the different, uh, sectors, and they told me that they want livestock to be taken out of the, uh, Industrial Emissions Directive. They want the end of the Green Deal, and they certainly don't want this new regulation on animal transport. They want to put an end to free trade, and they want to, uh, to get new technologies to lighten the burden of their work.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “Throughout Europe, people are rising up to challenge the European Union's authoritarian drift and that of miss Van der Leyen. As in the case of all dictatorships, we are seeing authoritarianism and we are seeing a suffocating of freedom. Since the 20th of March, we have seen people challenging what is decided here in this chamber, in other words, the right of states to oppose her decisions. We've seen that in the case of Romania, and the European minded politicians have called for elections to be cancelled. This is a scandal. We're now seeing a similar case in France, and we're seeing a presidential favourite very critical of the European Union. I grant you, being prevented from standing for election now people should rise up. They are angry about these decisions. But be careful, because history shows us that those who seek to curb democracy will live to regret it. The consequences will be serious.”
  EU political integration
• “And we need to talk about sustainability. Thank you. There's a serious crisis in farming and that the commission is trying to come up with a new cap. We're going to be trying to force through Mercosur this year. So I think that this is rather off the subject, this discussion. Let's not forget that European farming is the most virtue richest in the world. It's only 0.7% of emissions of greenhouse gases. We're still asking for more of an effort. I feel that regenerative agriculture, of which we have no definition, is far away from what most farmers do, and it's a long way off what they want to do. We haven't eaten. We've said nothing about the cost. We haven't said anything about food sovereignty, which is an absolutely essential issue. And we do understand that regenerative agriculture. Arises from the Green Deal, which our farmers doesn't want or don't want. Because it means they can't compete with the very competitive agriculture in the rest of the world.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “(15:34:02 – 15:35:20): Thank you. Well, this gets us to the end of the logic of the growth people and the green deal. Let me explain. Yield has to be brought down, less input, less fertilizer, bring down livestock. In other words, reduce agriculture production. And obviously, that will bring down the income of our farmers as well. So basically, we're having solutions put to us, Wixar, just tacked on. The farmer can become a tourist guide in abandoned countryside. They can produce biomass. He can launch himself into the bioeconomy. But the EU has an eye on everything. Our plates would always be full. They plan for everything with three trade agreements. We're going to be increasing, in import increasing amounts of food. In the presentation of the report, what we saw is that these activities, particularly those of the bioeconomy, are not viable. So we said, okay. We can subsidize it. And we're told beforehand, okay. Yes. But we can subsidize by taking money from the CAP. Money already planned to go to farmers, but was planned in order for them to produce food. Now let me be very clear and simple. Farming is a human activity, in order to feed people, support agricultural production in order to feed us.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU · Agriculture (green)
• “And now it will be 100,000 tonnes under the new Association agreement. And then there is also the terrible Mercosur agreement, 180,000 tonnes of sugar from Mercosur. You are destroying the French and European sugar industries. I recently met with sugar beet producers from the north of France, and they said they were going to stop sugar beet production because they couldn't continue. What about poultry? We're going from 90,000 tons before the war to 120,000 tons now. Again, you're completely destroying a whole production chain. You say we have to support farmers and Ukraine, but who are you supporting? You're supporting the Ukrainian oligarchs. 80% of poultry in Ukraine is produced by a Ukrainian billionaire who lives in Malta. And his company is stock listed in London. So you're just going to help him and then look at the figures. The average wage in Ukraine is €165 per month. So how can you pit us against that kind of competition? You're not listening to farmers, you're not listening to the public at large. And then you dare to come to this agri committee. We are here as representatives of the farming committee. And you say that this is a balanced agreement, but it's absolutely not. It's scandalous to even dare to say that.”
  Agricultural trade: Ukraine imports
• “Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Times are Difficult when it comes to promoting the produce of our producers. So we should not criminalize some of our products like wine and meat. We should not be financing rival products. I'm thinking here of millions spent promoting South African wines. We should not get rid of the Commission's promotional budget. It is looking to do that. And of course we need to improve labelling. We saw in all presentations that labelling is far from clear for consumers. Very often they are at a loss and end up making mistakes.”
  Food labelling harmonisation at EU level
• “Thank you, Madam Chair. Globalization. Uh, what? We were sold in the 90s is over. Uh, for China, for the US, for the large powers. It's all over, but apparently not for us. In the EU. We still believe that this is, uh, great, this idea of globalization. I'm completely shocked by what the commission has said on this dossier. You know, it was a short intervention where we're told that what China's doing are unjustified, but in reality nothing is being proposed. In reality, the European Commission is just happy to look at what's happening elsewhere. But the train has already left the station. When it comes to fertiliser, same thing. No reaction, no proposal from the European Commission when it comes to China. You know, it's in an economic war. The US as well. We need to rearm ourselves. We need to show that we have power. We need to negotiate. But we don't see anything coming in from the European Commission. So obviously our Pigmeat producers, they have no weapons. I'm thinking of our French pigmeat producers who do export to China some of the offal which the Chinese require, uh, pig heads, for example. And they are there on their own. Uh, faced with the Chinese giant. I've heard a couple of solutions from the commission. We're going to start a procedure at the WTO, but the WTO is dead. It is no longer reliable. It no longer has credibility, but it's the same software we have in the EU. We are a has been. We think the world is the same as it was in the 90s. But this is an economic war that hasn't been declared. Uh, but, uh, if there is a war, you have to defend your own production. We need to go back to being a powerful Europe. But that's not on the commission's agenda. Thank you.”
  Trade relations with China
• “Thank you. Um, there are different jobs that attract different genders. I just want to remind you that women work a lot in farming. That 3% figures figure we need to drop it because women work in on farms. They work more after their normal jobs, and they often have bureaucratic obstacles from the EU. Often in a family farms. There isn't enough money to hire farmhands in my region. Women are very present and in agriculture. If we want to attract more women, we need to invest and develop new technologies, new technologies, for example, in dairy farming and AI. But we with the EU, we can't do that. This isn't an issue affecting only women. It's as patriots have said, it affects men and women. The park money is dropping enormously. The Green Deal is ruining farmers lives every day. It's a much wider issue than what has been mentioned here.”
  Gender roles, equality and inclusion
• “Yes, clearly I agree with you. And that is why I'm saying let's put a stop to these free trade agreements and this madness which is making us open up all our borders to countries that don't follow the same rules when it comes to social and environmental standards that our businesses have. So I think you're right that that would aggravate our deficit, which would not stop European states from cooperating bilaterally with this significant major power in Asia, and particularly to compete with the Chinese economy.”
  Free trade agreements (FTAs)
• “We know that the commission no longer considers farming a priority. Now, with this file, we know that the Commission wants to destroy both European and French farming. You say that this is a satisfactory and balanced agreement. But go and say that to farmers themselves. Say that to livestock producers themselves because they think you're laughing at them. There were a few figures you mentioned, but you you failed to mention others. Sugar 20,000 tonnes of sugar from Ukraine before the war.”
  Agricultural trade: Ukraine imports
• “Thank you very much. There's a lot of talk about the Green Deal. The development of biofuel requires a productive farming sector, which has been able to shrug off the excessive environmental requirements. We can't reduce our dependence on fossil fuels because of bioethanol, while at the same time weakening the sector that is trying to grow them. Give it example. In France, beat is very much affected by new measures that have been implemented. So there are certain constraints that have to be withdrawn if we have overproduction in agriculture, if there's a threat on the fossil supplies. Member states should be able to trigger a clause which allows them to put in more biofuel, and that has to be a clause that member states can trigger. We need to be able to produce sovereign fuel. Sovereignty is a very important word, and it would support our agricultural sector. We all support the innovations which make it possible to have an additional income, but at the same time, we have to make sure that this additional income for our farmers does not become the main income because it's important that food production be maintained. Given particularly, and let me stress that here, that the main point of agriculture is to feed human beings.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “Migration will once again be on the agenda of the European Council. But do our leaders listen to the peoples of Europe? They all say it. They don't want any more massive migration. They can no longer put up with it. This migration is threatening their identity, their wallet and their security in particular. Could I just remind you of Lola, a 12 year old girl who was tortured and who was killed by an Algerian migrant, which the French government couldn't expel. When I think of Lola, I think that the real criminals are the people who are behind these migration trends. We have to put an end to these pacts and agreements on migration, or the pact for asylum and migration shows something very clearly. And that is migration isn't a problem for European leaders. It's a plan.”
  Asylum & border control
• “Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Well, we can all agree we do need to have a more responsible use of antimicrobials. I am very much aware that these are sometimes used irresponsibly. And we've heard that these products have a very high cost. I see that these decisions, however, are in a sort of ideology of, you know, going in a different direction. What about the Green Deal and so on, because we see that in the Farm to Fork program, there was a necessity to actually reduce by 50% by 2030 of these products. Again, we've got an attack against a stock breeders. We know this situation very well, and I see that we really don't need new European bodies and new technocratic structures to carry out surveillance about the use of antimicrobials and the resistance to them. I just remind you that, for example, that in France we've already invested a lot in this issue. We've got antibiotic plans reducing by 52% the exposure of the animals to these products. And it's good that these things be done by member States, which do carry out actions there. And I see a contradiction here. The European Union, because we're talking about the European Union, is conducting a war against the antimicrobials very well. At the same time, we're talking about Mercosur and having trade agreements with them, where we know that they are stuffed with antibiotics over there. And that's not the only contradiction of the European Union. We've already noticed it on other occasions.”
  Antimicrobial resistance
• “Commissioner, I want to tell you about Patrick, who rears chickens in Brittany. He works throughout the day, and then once he's done his work on the farm, he's got 160 pages of paperwork he's got to do. His. Income has gone down, but his costs have gone up. Pedro, on the other hand, is a farmer from Brazil. And he can sell his chicken at a low price in Europe, but Pedro doesn't have to comply with the same animal welfare standards. He uses pesticides on his maize and growth promoters. And Patrick's questions and concerns have fallen on deaf ears. So Patrick says, how dare you impose something so unfair on him? He said to me, pass this message on to the commissioner. I don't believe in Europe anymore. That's what Patrick says.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “Commissioner, for the last couple of months. Our farmers are getting bad news all the time. They're hearing that the cap has fallen. We've also seen inflation. 2 billion per year for France. We've also seen that the bad news is that the Green Deal is carrying on, that they have been increased number of FTAs. There's been the the bad news of Mercosur agreement. And now we're hearing again that there's going to be more imports which are from Ukraine, which are playing, which are competitive against our farmers. And now the European Commission, we see, is not actually fighting against Trump and its taxes, taxes on wines and spirits in Europe because they wanted to protect industry. Bad news again, when they hear that the commission is not going to fight against China, who wants to to actually tax our pork exports even higher? So, Commissioner, I've only got one question for you. One. And that is what our agriculture, our farmers are asking because they're fed up with this bad news, going beyond the linguistic juggling that you've carried out. Do you, Commissioner, today, have at least one piece of good news for the farmers today. Please, please give them one piece of good news.”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, our colleague has done some excellent work that's moving in the right direction. He takes account, in particular of SMEs, the leading victims in the increase in production prices, punitive ecology and unfair competition from third countries. I'd also like to welcome the support he's given to production of wine and meat, two important products provided by our farmers and are crucial to our way of life and identity, which are constantly attacked by those in favour of food transition and hygiene dictatorships. I would have liked this report to go a little bit further on the negative effects of the Green Deal, which penalise our local production and national production, and means that we are required to compensate for the degradation of our competitiveness through huge efforts on promoting our production. Obviously, I will be tabling certain amendments on this important text.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “Thank you. Madam Chair. The European Commission has really looked for the language here. There is one thing that bothers me from the beginning, and it's this idea that, um, farmers just pollute. European agriculture is the most virtuous in the world. We're making huge efforts to protect the environment with carbon credits, etc.. And there's another thing that bothers me. We have this idea that there are good and bad farmers and nature created ones who have nature credits and ones who's ones who don't because they pollute. But I have a question. Are there nature credits in Ukraine? Or what about in the Mercosur countries? Where we are bringing unfair competition from for our farmers? The European Commission is once again giving us a ticking time bomb. Because if this system is put in place, it's just going to once again give us a huge amount of red tape paperwork. And our farmers don't want that anymore. So let's talk about simplification. But here what we're doing is once again giving the more complicated things Our farmers don't want this, so listen to them at last. They want, um, funds so they can keep making money. They want a lower cost of production. They expect us to stop, um, bringing in competition from all over the world. And I repeat, this is once again a ticking time bomb, and they don't want it.”
  Agriculture (green)
• “Thank you very much. I think after these hours of debate and that I think that we've just learned that someone has found out that the farmers are seeing that their fields are still going to be flooded and that their milk is not going to be worth as much. But they don't understand what's going on with our debates here. But he will have understood one thing the farmer, that agriculture is no longer a priority for the European Commission. The farmer will understand that. He'll understand that tomorrow he's going to be getting less. He's going to be having access to less funds. And if these policies that are bringing in of Ukraine into the European Union, well, then the person would get even less funds from the Cap. In the future, the farmer will have also understood that the European Commission is no longer counting on farmers to feed Europeans, but rather is going to be counting on farmers from the other side of the planet, those people that the European Commission is actually favoring with their free trade agreements, our former our former will have understood that they're being sacrificed on the altar of the these policies carried out right now by the European Union.”
  Agricultural trade: Ukraine imports · Agricultural funding
• “The WTO is brain dead, and apparently only the European Union is unaware of this. The major powers free trade to protect themselves. The European Union is the only one that doesn't this doesn't know this and is multiplying free trade agreements. The world is changing very quickly. The European Union doesn't know this and are blinded by their own position. The European Union is the only one that seems to feel that there is. We can have happy globalization, but Europe is being left behind in all sectors. We have these rules in the WTO that was put in place after the Second World War. They no longer apply. And the time has come to wake up and face the world. As it is. We have to face up to our competitors, the United States, China and also renew production food certainty. Of supply and reforming the WTO is a loss to battle. Let's change the software.”
  Free trade agreements (FTAs)