Commissioner Wojciechowski pointed out that there are many structural problems in the pork sector: high concentration of production and a highly diverse situation in individual Member States.

“This is why it is so difficult to develop a single comprehensive solution that would help everyone. However, we are closely monitoring the situation and do not exclude the possibility of leveraging market instruments,” concluded the Commissioner after the informal videoconference of the EU ministers of agriculture.

Member States’ request to the European Commission to support the pork sector

The difficult situation on the pork market was also raised by Ryszard Bartosik, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), who represented Poland. Poland is among several Member States which jointly requested the Commission to introduce EU‑level measures to support the pork sector, affected by dramatic price declines caused by factors such as restrictions related to COVID‑19.

“We are facing a very difficult and deteriorating situation in the pork market. Poland has repeatedly drawn the Commission’s attention to this problem. ASF, COVID‑19 and, additionally, the current seasonal price decreases are having a very negative impact on the situation of pork producers in the EU and the prospects for the sector. The price of pork in Poland declined by nearly 42% between January 2020 and January 2021. This perfectly illustrates the scale of the problem we are facing. For this reason, Poland and many other EU Member States are requesting support for the pork sector again,” said Secretary of State Bartosik.

The Portuguese presidency

The fisheries part of the meeting, which was held as a videoconference, was chaired by the Portuguese Minister of the Sea Ricardo Serrão Santos, while the Portuguese Minister for Agriculture Maria do Céu Antunes chaired the section on agriculture.

The Portuguese Presidency presented the work programme for the Agriculture Council in the first half of 2021. As a matter of priority, the Presidency will work to rebuild the economy after the pandemic crisis, using digital technologies, green investments and actions addressing climate protection.

Fisheries and Brexit

In the discussion on fisheries, ministers prepared bilateral consultations between the EU and the UK regarding fishing rights for 2021 and, in the case of deep-sea fish stocks, for 2021 and 2022.

Other agricultural topics

During the agricultural debate, EU Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski reported to ministers on recent developments in international agricultural trade. Commissioner Wojciechowski also presented an update of the 2016 Joint Research Centre (JRC) study on the cumulative economic impact for the EU agricultural sector exerted by trade agreements signed so far and currently negotiated, including the bilateral free trade agreement with Mercosur.

Given the current economic situation, Poland proposed that the Common Commercial Policy should focus primarily on effective implementation of the existing agreements.

“This is why we support the Commission’s broader use of dispute settlement procedures, both within the WTO and in free trade agreements. We believe that it is necessary to counteract unreasonable trade barriers which block the possibility of using tariff preferences. For instance, Poland has been barred from the Korean meat market for a number of years,” said Deputy Minister Bartosik.

“We believe that free trade agreements with partners that are major exporters should contain effective bilateral safeguard clauses that would protect the agricultural sector in the event of negative economic effects of trade liberalisation,” Ryszard Bartosik added.

The Deputy Minister emphasised that Poland is waiting for the Commission to develop procedures in the Mercosur agreement to enable the application of a bilateral blanket safeguard clause for the agricultural sector.

In Poland’s view, the provisions of the agreement with the United Kingdom with regard to safeguard clauses, Level Playing Field or SPS represent model solutions to be incorporated into other free trade agreements, particularly those where the EU has defensive interests in the agricultural sector.

When exchanging their views, ministers highlighted the new circumstances in trade: the impact of the ongoing COVID‑19 pandemic, the recent EU-UK agreement, the new US administration, the application of existing agreements and the ongoing bilateral and multilateral negotiations at the WTO.

Progress on the CAP reform

In the context of the trialogue negotiations on the future CAP reform, the President of the Council briefed the ministers on the status of the negotiations.

“It is important to reach an efficient compromise between all institutions. However, the quality and clarity of the final outcome of the CAP reform is more important than the pace of negotiations. We would not like to postpone negotiations on green architecture until a later stage,” said Deputy Minister Bartosik.

This would mean that negotiations on conditionality would also be postponed. At the same time, conditionality is a key component of the future CAP, since it determines the basic income support for farmers, the rules of ‘eco-schemes’ as well as agri-environment and climate payments.

If arrangements on conditionality are postponed, this will obstruct the work on strategic plans. Therefore, in Poland’s view, this sphere should be prioritised in the negotiations.