Agriculture, Priorities of the French presidency

These priorities include, on the one hand, the reciprocity of trading standards – in other words, ensuring (chiefly by means of ‘mirror clauses’) that agri-food products imported into Europe abide by the EU’s environmental and health standards, particularly as regards the sustainable use of phytopharmaceutical products – and, on the other hand, low-carbon agriculture, in particular carbon sequestration in agricultural soils.

The presidency will also aim to take forward work in the following areas:

• evaluation of the national strategic plans, as part of efforts to ensure the transparency of the CAP reform;
• the proposal for a regulation on statistics on agricultural input and output;
• revision of EU legislation on geographical indications;
• the regulation on deforestation-free products;
• and the EU’s agricultural product promotion policy.

In fisheries, the presidency will focus on the revision of the fisheries control regulation and will propose a political debate on the common fisheries policy and its implementation.