EU centre-right aims for agriculture Commissioner, says party’s farming policy chief

The chair of the European Parliament’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee (AGRI) will go to the Conservatives, the current European People’s Party (EPP) coordinator for agriculture Herbert Dorfmann, told Euractiv, as they aim for the post of Commissioner for Agriculture.

Dorfmann was the agriculture coordinator for the EPP during the last legislature. For the current term, he says that “we will see next week” if he will return to the role, when political groups will make up the committees, deciding the respective chair and coordinators.

The technical competence and political experience of the 55-year-old agronomist, who has been a member of the European Parliament since 2009, make him a strong candidate for the confirmation of the role.

For sure, he will not run for the chair of the powerful AGRI committee, as it “will go to the ECR group,” Dorfmann told Euractiv.

The EPP during the last year, repositioned itself as the farmers’ party’, aiming at the post of Commissioner for Agriculture.

“We aim at a strong EPP Commissioner for agriculture, I told Ursula von der Leyen last week and I think she understands the importance of that”, he explained. He met von der Leyen in the study days in Cascais, Portugal.

In his conversation, the MEP called for “an agricultural policy that makes farming an attractive profession again in Europe, especially for young people, that allows farmers to earn an adequate income,” with interventions “needed on the food value chain.”

Von der Leyen “dedicated large parts of her speech in Cascais to agriculture,” Dorfmann added.

Don’t go green

Next week von der Leyen is expected to go through the European Parliament confirmation ‘test’. “There is already a majority,” Dorfmann said, referring to the possible need from von der Leyen to consolidate and increase the numbers of the EPP-S&D-Renew majority.

There are two ways to do that: Gaining votes from the Greens or from the ECR.

“Personally I think she should not search for the support of the Greens, because this will mean find ourselves in the same situation of the past,” when the Commission “seemed to have neglected agriculture” to focus on environmental policies, “without taking farmers onboard.”

“The method must change,” added Dorfmann.

No new EP committees

On the split of the Environment Committee (ENVI) in a body dedicated to health and another for environment, given as imminent and “90%” done by his party’s colleague Peter Liese last week, the Sud Tyrol MEP is adamant that there will be no change, “for now”.

Socialists opposed the move, and the European consumers’ organisation BEUC wrote a letter to the parliament political groups to warn that splitting ENVI is in contradiction with the ‘One Health’ approach, connecting environmental & public health policies.

“Uniting the food, health, and environment competence in one committee is the right decision,” BEUC’s Director General Agustín Reyna said in a statement.

“Let me be clear” – Dorfmann explained – “those are changes that political groups can make whenever they want, if they find an agreement.” In the next 5-10 days, “we’ll not be able to do that, we’ll decide the chairs and the vicechairs, on the basis of the traditional structure that will not change,” he added.

Today Tuesday (9 July), Liese published a press release confirming that that will be no split in the ENVI committee.

[Edited by Rajnish Singh]

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