EU farmers chief calls for vice-president for agriculture in next Commission

*This article is part of a series of interviews on the expectations of all segments of the food supply chain regarding the EU’s agrifood policy for the next mandate.

The next European Commission should have a “strong” commissioner for agriculture, to reflect the rising importance of food and farming on the political agenda, the president of COPA, the largest European farmers’ association, told Euractiv in an interview.

Christiane Lambert, the first woman to head the EU’s most representative farmers’ organisation, will step down in September after four years at the helm.

Her mandate began in the 1st year of the pandemic, continued with the trauma of a new war in Europe, and ended with farmers’ rallies across the continent, in a crescendo that seems to have changed the EU’s approach to agriculture.

At the of start of the mandate, in 2019, EU policymakers “only spoke of environment” and “thought that food security was not a problem” because if we lacked food and other agfricultural products, “we could buy it from another country”.

After the shocks of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “all [EU] governments are now saying” that food security and production are “as important as the environment”.

Farmers’ movements have been blamed for the setback in the EU’s Green Deal agenda, to which Lambert replied: “We need women and men who are aware” of climate issue and environmental transition.

However, she added, -“if we look at the real conditions of farming, you have to understand that” applying some green requirements, whatever the conditions, “is impossible”. “We must adapt the rhythm of change to the capacity of the farmers.”

The comeback of food security has also been reflected in the 2024-29 Strategic Agenda sealed by the EU leaders on 28 June.

Because of this shift in perspective, Lambert is now calling for “a strong commissioner,” for the upcoming mandate. “We would like him to be vice-president of the Commission”, someone with a portfolio covering the food supply chain, because the whole food chain now needs to be taken into account more.

In the college of commissioners, the vice-presidents act on behalf of the president and coordinate work in their area of responsibility, together with several commissioners.

Food and food chain

A commissioner for food is likely to be called upon to address the controversial issue of the balance of market power in the food supply chain. “Strengthening the position of farmers in the food chain” is also a commitment of the EU leaders’ Strategic Agenda.

On this issue, the EU adopted a directive to protect farmers’ income in 2019, after an agonising debate with farmers, the food industry, and retailers on opposing barricades.

Farmers’ income is “only 60% of the average” and the directive “does not go far enough”, Lambert pointed out. In many countries, she added, players in the food chain are making commitments to take account of production costs to remunerate farmers with “a good price”.

Among the national “good examples”, according to Lambert, are Spain, France, and Croatia, “but we need to change at the European level”.

Protection, not protectionism

Asked if all this emphasis on food security and food sovereignty risks spilling over into protectionism, Lambert replied that “when you say sovereignty, it means you need a political decision to say that agriculture is important”.

“We have to exchange, we are open to trade,” she said, adding that we need more “reciprocity in exchange, to have the same rules as much as possible with third country producers”.

Along with rejecting protectionism, Lambert has no sympathy for nationalism. “Europe is the necessary horizon for farmers,” she said.

“If we only have nationalist parties side by side, it is an addition of selfish people. And that does not make a united family.”

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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