MEP Pascal Canfin aims for pro-nature, pro-farmer cooperation with EPP

In an interview with Euractiv, the outgoing chair of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI), Pascal Canfin, called on lawmakers from the centre-right European People’s Party, who supported farmers’ strikes, to embrace a more ecological approach. 

Canfin was one of the European Parliament’s most prominent lawmakers in its last term, and one of the hemicycle’s loudest advocates of the European Green Deal. 

However, a backlash against the EU’s environmental policies, particularly from farmers last April, supported by elements of the EPP, cast a pall over the Green Deal’s political champions – Canfin included.  

Looking back, the liberal MEP diagnosed “a form of ‘naturoscepticism'” within the EPP, “i.e. a belief that the loss of biodiversity is not so real or not so serious”.  

Canfin was re-elected in the June Parliamentary elections but his Renew group has lost ground and is now only the fifth largest group in the Parliament. The main consequence for Canfin is that the role of ENVI chair, which Canfin hoped to maintain, will not go to a liberal for the next term.  

“This is because of the rule for sharing chairmanships,” he explained. The Socialists (S&D), the Parliament’s second largest group, have secured the position for one of their own.  

Instead, Canfin is standing to be Renew’s cnvironment coordinator, a role in which he would be responsible for leading his group’s lawmakers within ENVI. 

“I want to share my experience and push for the Green Deal to be completed,” Canfin explained.

In his view, there are several points to consider, such as defining greenhouse gas emission targets for 2040 and, most contentiously, considering the creation of a carbon market for the agri-food industry “without making farmers bear the brunt of the rules of the game”.  

Linking competitiveness and nature 

Canfin said he sees “a real risk” that lawmakers from the EPP, the largest group in the European Parliament, could see the situation differently and block new environmental laws or undermine the already adopted rules. 

The EPP is historically more at ease with promoting economic competitiveness than with protecting nature.  To “motivate the conservatives,” Canfin pointed to a European Central Bank finding that nature and its services contribute around 50% of global GDP.

According to Canfin, “competitiveness and ecology are on the same roadmap.”

He said “the best way to achieve a high level of competitiveness is to master low-carbon technologies, to gradually move away from fossil fuels, to innovate and to finance the necessary investments”. 

The former ENVI chair is therefore calling for the “necessary compromises” to be found within the Parliament, without “abandoning the EU’s environmental agenda”.  

Seeking compromise 

To achieve this, the next mandate should work on adaptation and resilience to climate change, Canfin argued, noting that no one can deny the importance of these topics and warning that the EU must “assess the consequences of a 4-degree Europe”, as France has already begun to do.  

Canfin also proposed developing a “narrative” on biodiversity and agriculture that covers “the entire value chain”. 

“At present, the body of environmental regulations weighs mainly on farmers, creating a distortion of requirements with their industrial contractors and cooperatives.”  

In the same spirit, he wants to help farmer in their price negotiations with industrials and cooperatives, citing the French ‘Egalim law’, which seeks to give farmers a fair return for their products.  

Farmers are “asking us to do so” Canfin argued – an argument likely aimed at the many EPP lawmakers who made a point of standing with farmers during the spring protests across Europe.

In this vein, “it is more necessary than ever to put in place mirror clauses” in EU trade deals, according to Canfin. Mirror clauses would require food producers in third countries who want to export to the EU to comply with the same social, sanitary, and environmental rules as EU farmers. 

While “a large part of the EPP is not very keen on this issue, it is extremely difficult to oppose them (mirror clauses) when farmers have clearly demanded them”, he said.  

For all these measures, the incoming European Commission president will have to ensure that the “Commission’s mandate is dedicated to investment in the climate and digital transition particularly. The Commission must clearly become an ‘investment Commission'”, Canfin concluded. 

The incumbent Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen will be voted on for a second mandate in the European Parliament plenary on 18 July.

[Edited by Donagh Cagney/Zoran Radosavljevic]