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It already seemed as if EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s initiative to lower the high standard of species protection for wolves had fizzled out. There was no majority on the member states’ side in the spring. Now something is happening: Luxembourg has announced its support for the initiative. This would fulfill one of two conditions for a qualified majority: At least 15 member states would be in favor.
However, as there are comparatively few Luxembourgers, this is not enough to fulfill the second condition: The states must also represent 65 percent of the EU population. It is therefore surprising to hear that the Hungarian Council Presidency intends to vote again on Wednesday at EU ambassador level on the protection of the predators.
Ultimately, a country with a large number of members would have to speak out in favor of the Commission’s proposal in order to get things moving: Germany or Spain, for example. In her former role as Environment Minister in Madrid, Teresa Ribera was just as vehemently opposed to more culls as her German counterpart Steffi Lemke.
At her hearings in parliament, future Executive Vice-President Ribera is likely to face awkward questions if she sticks to her guns. There are now rumors that the federal government could change its mind and abandon its reservation of scrutiny. If this is true, then the election result in the “wolf state” of Brandenburg probably provided the impetus.
Get through the day safely!
Some titles will change, but the responsibilities of the new Commissioners for agricultural and food issues will essentially remain the same. As before, the Agriculture Commissioner – proposed by Christophe Hansen (EPP) from Luxembourg – will be responsible for agriculture and rural development and thus for both pillars of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The Health Commissioner – the Hungarian Olivér Várhelyi has been proposed – will continue to cover animal welfare and food safety, including plant protection and genetic engineering.
What is new is that the Executive Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms, Raffaele Fitto, is to oversee the work of Agriculture Commissioner Hansen. The Italian is a confidant of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and a member of her Fratelli d’Italia party. During von der Leyen’s first term of office, the agriculture portfolio was still under the overall supervision of Green Deal Commissioner Frans Timmermans. An arrangement that harbored a lot of potential for conflict, also because Timmermans was actively involved in the agricultural sector and conducted trilogue negotiations himself.
By changing the structure, von der Leyen is reducing the risk that Teresa Ribera from Spain, who will be responsible for implementing the Green Deal targets as Vice-President in the future, will become a similarly irritating figure for farmers as Timmermans. The upgrading of the portfolio from agriculture to “Agriculture and Food” also sends the signal that Hansen will be in charge of this policy area – even if he does not actually have any new responsibilities.
Accordingly, in his letter of appointment, the Commission President instructs Hansen to draw up the paper on the vision of agriculture that von der Leyen promised – based on the recommendations of the strategy dialog – for the first 100 days of her term of office. By way of comparison, the farm-to-fork strategy, which previously provided the framework for agricultural and food policy, was presented by the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety.
Von der Leyen wants to directly oversee the creation of the vision paper herself. The letter of appointment shows which recommendations from the strategy dialog she will focus on in particular. For example, the recommendation to pay CAP direct payments “directly to small farmers”. Compared to the statement in the Strategy Dialogue report, this is a relativization. There it sounded as if only “farmers in need” could still hope to receive the area payment. According to the SME definition, “small farms” could still mean that farmers with up to 250 hectares of land would continue to receive the direct payment.
Hansen has the task of initiating the reorganization of direct payments in view of Ukraine’s accession to the EU. There is a consensus that the direct payment cannot continue as before once the huge areas have joined. The reduction, restructuring or abolition of the area payment over the course of up to two future funding periods (up to 2042) is under discussion.
In the previous funding period, direct payments were tied to farmers fulfilling organic requirements. This so-called conditionality of payments was called into question by the Strategic Dialogue on Agriculture. It is expected that a switch will be made to an incentive model in the future. According to the model, farmers receive additional financial aid if they fulfill certain eco-services.
It is expected that the Commission will take stronger action against unfair trading practices. This is indicated by the fact that the Commission President has pledged to do more for farmers in this matter. It must be ensured that they do not have to sell their products below production cost. Conflicts with the trade are to be expected here.
It is also likely to be controversial which climate change adaptation measures will be supported by the Commission. What will be supported beyond the set aside of land? Is there also money for irrigation, for converting stables to protect animals in hot weather, and for artificial shading of pastures?
It also calls on Luxembourg’s Hansen to work together with Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič towards more “reciprocity” and a level playing field in international trade. This is likely to mean that requirements for imports are aligned more closely with those that apply to domestic producers. The Strategy Dialogue has also called for this, but the scope for this under trade law is limited.
The topic of animal welfare has been symbolically upgraded and is now included in the title of the nominated Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi. The Commission had made proposals for new rules on animal transportation and the protection of domestic cats and dogs. Both proposals have not yet been dealt with by the Council and Parliament.
Plant protection would also fall under Várhelyi’s remit. The mission letter only mentions the competencies for biological plant protection. A more comprehensive reform would also include application regulations and authorization procedures. The Nitrates Directive is also not mentioned in the mission letter. Nevertheless, there are indications that the Commission could tackle the directive. Exemptions from which the Netherlands and Ireland benefit will soon expire. Consideration is being given to which technical measures could be used to allow regions with intensive grazing livestock farming higher fertilizer inputs.
On Oct. 20, the people of Moldova will make two decisions. They must elect their new head of state from a total of 17 candidates. And it must decide whether the planned accession to the European Union should be enshrined in the constitution in order to prevent future governments from diverting the republic from its pro-European course.
Moldova has been a candidate for EU membership since June 2022, after the government applied for membership in March of the same year. The country of 2.5 million inhabitants is one of the poorest in Europe and also has one of the smallest armed forces in the world – comprising just 7,000 people. This is surprising given its geopolitical location in eastern Europe and 1,222 kilometers of shared border with Ukraine.
That is why things should now move quickly: Moldova should join the EU as early as 2030 if Chișinău has his way. A lot still needs to happen before then. Specifically, the republic faces four challenges:
These factors influence each other. A lack of a consistent political line hinders the integrity of state powers – there is too much concern about restrictions from a new government that is potentially pursuing a different political course. Corruption in the political system in turn opens the door to Russian influence. This is also confirmed by Prime Minister Dorin Recean: “Russia cannot harm us militarily, which is why Moscow is focusing on hybrid attacks.”
Putin’s influence is particularly strong in the autonomous region of Gagauzia and in the breakaway de facto regime of Transnistria, which is exclusively supported by Russia. Both regions have their own governments and are even more exposed to disinformation campaigns than the rest of the country.
The desired narrative of both poles is the same: A peaceful and prosperous Moldova – whether as a member of the European Union or as Putin’s godchild. For the EU, the most important thing is not to lose Moldova to Russia. That is why it is overlooking the sometimes obvious obstacles for the time being. For Moldova, EU membership would not primarily mean military security, but economic and political security.
Polls, for example from the International Republican Institute, are currently pointing in the direction of the EU – up to 65 percent approval is predicted – and the re-election of pro-European President Maia Sandu. However, Sandu will probably not win the presidency in the first round, but in the second, says Eastern European scholar Anastasia Pociumban from the German Council on Foreign Relations to Table.Briefings.
The parliamentary elections in June next year will be interesting, as Sandu’s PAS party is unlikely to win a majority there. The party won the 2021 election campaign on domestic rather than foreign policy issues. However, due to many challenges – Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, the resulting energy and economic crisis and over a million Ukrainians who have fled via Moldova – it has not been able to keep its promises, says Pociumban. Moreover, people are more interested in Sandu as a person than in her party, as she is regarded as one of the few major political figures in the country who is not corrupt.
It is important to the Moldovans themselves that their country is not viewed too simplistically. Moldova is not just a pawn between two major powers, but has its own decision-making power and agency and has become more and more resilient as a result of the multiple crises: Moldovans emphasize this time and again.
The research for this report was carried out as part of a journalist trip to Moldova and Romania sponsored by the European Commission.
He probably has to address most of the animosities in the European Parliament: Raffaele Fitto from the right-wing nationalist Fratelli d’Italia. The fact that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has given the Italian a key position in the new Commission is causing resentment, particularly on the left of the EPP. However, this is probably due less to his personality than to the rejection of the party he represents.
Fitto was appointed Executive Vice President for Cohesion and Reforms. This also includes responsibility for the distribution of billions from the Corona Reconstruction Fund and the promotion of poor, structurally weak regions. Funds that make up around a third of the EU budget will pass through Fitto’s desk in the future. According to von der Leyen’s mission letter to Fitto, his work should achieve nothing less than “making European economies and societies more sustainable and resilient and better prepared for future challenges”.
With the weighty post for Fitto, von der Leyen is also securing the recently crumbled solidarity of Italy’s head of government Giorgia Meloni. In protest against previous exclusion in the distribution of key positions in the European Council, Meloni abstained from voting for von der Leyen as Commission President. With Fitto as Vice-President, Meloni will now receive the recognition she had hoped for in Italy. Fitto’s appointment will also appease the ECR group – which could be helpful in the future in close votes in Parliament.
Because as EPP leader Manfred Weber once aptly called him: Fitto serves as a link. From June 2019 to October 2022, he himself was Co-Chair of the ECR Group. He then moved to Meloni’s cabinet – where he is currently Minister for European Affairs and the Regions of Southern Italy. Unlike other new commissioners, Fitto is therefore no stranger to his assigned area of responsibility.
For the past two years, he has been responsible for the money from the reconstruction fund in Italy, which amounts to around €200 billion. A task that has little to do with party affiliation, which Fitto is said to have good contacts with the Italian Social Democrats.
Fitto is one of the few Fratelli d’Italia who can look back on many years of experience in politics at regional, national and European level. Born in 1969 in Maglie, a small town in the province of Lecce, he began his political career at the age of 20 in the regional politics of Apulia – at that time still as a member of the Democrazia Cristiana. After its collapse, Fitto moved through several successor parties until he joined Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia in 2001.
Fitto entered the European Parliament for the first time in 1999, but resigned from office just one year later because he had been elected President of his home region of Apulia. In 2006, he became a member of the national parliament, where he rose to become Minister for Regional Affairs in Berlusconi’s government in 2008. In 2014, Fitto returned to Brussels as an MEP, where he initially became part of the EPP.
However, he fell out with Berlusconi, left Forza Italia in 2015, founded his own party and also switched camps in the EU Parliament – joining the ECR group. After forming an electoral alliance with Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia in 2019 and being re-elected to the European Parliament for them, his small party Direzione Italia merged with the Fratelli.
Fitto has a trusting relationship with Meloni. He had already been in government with her for some time from 2008. It is therefore hardly surprising that she brought him into her cabinet as head of government. The three coalition parties in Rome were quickly able to agree on Fitto as a candidate for the EU Commission. The 55-year-old has excellent connections in Brussels and is also respected beyond party boundaries as reliable and fact-oriented. He is said to be sociable and a convinced European. He now only has to convince the skeptics on the left of the EPP of this. Almut Siefert
It already seemed as if EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s initiative to lower the high standard of species protection for wolves had fizzled out. There was no majority on the member states’ side in the spring. Now something is happening: Luxembourg has announced its support for the initiative. This would fulfill one of two conditions for a qualified majority: At least 15 member states would be in favor.
However, as there are comparatively few Luxembourgers, this is not enough to fulfill the second condition: The states must also represent 65 percent of the EU population. It is therefore surprising to hear that the Hungarian Council Presidency intends to vote again on Wednesday at EU ambassador level on the protection of the predators.
Ultimately, a country with a large number of members would have to speak out in favor of the Commission’s proposal in order to get things moving: Germany or Spain, for example. In her former role as Environment Minister in Madrid, Teresa Ribera was just as vehemently opposed to more culls as her German counterpart Steffi Lemke.
At her hearings in parliament, future Executive Vice-President Ribera is likely to face awkward questions if she sticks to her guns. There are now rumors that the federal government could change its mind and abandon its reservation of scrutiny. If this is true, then the election result in the “wolf state” of Brandenburg probably provided the impetus.
Get through the day safely!
Some titles will change, but the responsibilities of the new Commissioners for agricultural and food issues will essentially remain the same. As before, the Agriculture Commissioner – proposed by Christophe Hansen (EPP) from Luxembourg – will be responsible for agriculture and rural development and thus for both pillars of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The Health Commissioner – the Hungarian Olivér Várhelyi has been proposed – will continue to cover animal welfare and food safety, including plant protection and genetic engineering.
What is new is that the Executive Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms, Raffaele Fitto, is to oversee the work of Agriculture Commissioner Hansen. The Italian is a confidant of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and a member of her Fratelli d’Italia party. During von der Leyen’s first term of office, the agriculture portfolio was still under the overall supervision of Green Deal Commissioner Frans Timmermans. An arrangement that harbored a lot of potential for conflict, also because Timmermans was actively involved in the agricultural sector and conducted trilogue negotiations himself.
By changing the structure, von der Leyen is reducing the risk that Teresa Ribera from Spain, who will be responsible for implementing the Green Deal targets as Vice-President in the future, will become a similarly irritating figure for farmers as Timmermans. The upgrading of the portfolio from agriculture to “Agriculture and Food” also sends the signal that Hansen will be in charge of this policy area – even if he does not actually have any new responsibilities.
Accordingly, in his letter of appointment, the Commission President instructs Hansen to draw up the paper on the vision of agriculture that von der Leyen promised – based on the recommendations of the strategy dialog – for the first 100 days of her term of office. By way of comparison, the farm-to-fork strategy, which previously provided the framework for agricultural and food policy, was presented by the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety.
Von der Leyen wants to directly oversee the creation of the vision paper herself. The letter of appointment shows which recommendations from the strategy dialog she will focus on in particular. For example, the recommendation to pay CAP direct payments “directly to small farmers”. Compared to the statement in the Strategy Dialogue report, this is a relativization. There it sounded as if only “farmers in need” could still hope to receive the area payment. According to the SME definition, “small farms” could still mean that farmers with up to 250 hectares of land would continue to receive the direct payment.
Hansen has the task of initiating the reorganization of direct payments in view of Ukraine’s accession to the EU. There is a consensus that the direct payment cannot continue as before once the huge areas have joined. The reduction, restructuring or abolition of the area payment over the course of up to two future funding periods (up to 2042) is under discussion.
In the previous funding period, direct payments were tied to farmers fulfilling organic requirements. This so-called conditionality of payments was called into question by the Strategic Dialogue on Agriculture. It is expected that a switch will be made to an incentive model in the future. According to the model, farmers receive additional financial aid if they fulfill certain eco-services.
It is expected that the Commission will take stronger action against unfair trading practices. This is indicated by the fact that the Commission President has pledged to do more for farmers in this matter. It must be ensured that they do not have to sell their products below production cost. Conflicts with the trade are to be expected here.
It is also likely to be controversial which climate change adaptation measures will be supported by the Commission. What will be supported beyond the set aside of land? Is there also money for irrigation, for converting stables to protect animals in hot weather, and for artificial shading of pastures?
It also calls on Luxembourg’s Hansen to work together with Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič towards more “reciprocity” and a level playing field in international trade. This is likely to mean that requirements for imports are aligned more closely with those that apply to domestic producers. The Strategy Dialogue has also called for this, but the scope for this under trade law is limited.
The topic of animal welfare has been symbolically upgraded and is now included in the title of the nominated Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi. The Commission had made proposals for new rules on animal transportation and the protection of domestic cats and dogs. Both proposals have not yet been dealt with by the Council and Parliament.
Plant protection would also fall under Várhelyi’s remit. The mission letter only mentions the competencies for biological plant protection. A more comprehensive reform would also include application regulations and authorization procedures. The Nitrates Directive is also not mentioned in the mission letter. Nevertheless, there are indications that the Commission could tackle the directive. Exemptions from which the Netherlands and Ireland benefit will soon expire. Consideration is being given to which technical measures could be used to allow regions with intensive grazing livestock farming higher fertilizer inputs.
On Oct. 20, the people of Moldova will make two decisions. They must elect their new head of state from a total of 17 candidates. And it must decide whether the planned accession to the European Union should be enshrined in the constitution in order to prevent future governments from diverting the republic from its pro-European course.
Moldova has been a candidate for EU membership since June 2022, after the government applied for membership in March of the same year. The country of 2.5 million inhabitants is one of the poorest in Europe and also has one of the smallest armed forces in the world – comprising just 7,000 people. This is surprising given its geopolitical location in eastern Europe and 1,222 kilometers of shared border with Ukraine.
That is why things should now move quickly: Moldova should join the EU as early as 2030 if Chișinău has his way. A lot still needs to happen before then. Specifically, the republic faces four challenges:
These factors influence each other. A lack of a consistent political line hinders the integrity of state powers – there is too much concern about restrictions from a new government that is potentially pursuing a different political course. Corruption in the political system in turn opens the door to Russian influence. This is also confirmed by Prime Minister Dorin Recean: “Russia cannot harm us militarily, which is why Moscow is focusing on hybrid attacks.”
Putin’s influence is particularly strong in the autonomous region of Gagauzia and in the breakaway de facto regime of Transnistria, which is exclusively supported by Russia. Both regions have their own governments and are even more exposed to disinformation campaigns than the rest of the country.
The desired narrative of both poles is the same: A peaceful and prosperous Moldova – whether as a member of the European Union or as Putin’s godchild. For the EU, the most important thing is not to lose Moldova to Russia. That is why it is overlooking the sometimes obvious obstacles for the time being. For Moldova, EU membership would not primarily mean military security, but economic and political security.
Polls, for example from the International Republican Institute, are currently pointing in the direction of the EU – up to 65 percent approval is predicted – and the re-election of pro-European President Maia Sandu. However, Sandu will probably not win the presidency in the first round, but in the second, says Eastern European scholar Anastasia Pociumban from the German Council on Foreign Relations to Table.Briefings.
The parliamentary elections in June next year will be interesting, as Sandu’s PAS party is unlikely to win a majority there. The party won the 2021 election campaign on domestic rather than foreign policy issues. However, due to many challenges – Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, the resulting energy and economic crisis and over a million Ukrainians who have fled via Moldova – it has not been able to keep its promises, says Pociumban. Moreover, people are more interested in Sandu as a person than in her party, as she is regarded as one of the few major political figures in the country who is not corrupt.
It is important to the Moldovans themselves that their country is not viewed too simplistically. Moldova is not just a pawn between two major powers, but has its own decision-making power and agency and has become more and more resilient as a result of the multiple crises: Moldovans emphasize this time and again.
The research for this report was carried out as part of a journalist trip to Moldova and Romania sponsored by the European Commission.
He probably has to address most of the animosities in the European Parliament: Raffaele Fitto from the right-wing nationalist Fratelli d’Italia. The fact that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has given the Italian a key position in the new Commission is causing resentment, particularly on the left of the EPP. However, this is probably due less to his personality than to the rejection of the party he represents.
Fitto was appointed Executive Vice President for Cohesion and Reforms. This also includes responsibility for the distribution of billions from the Corona Reconstruction Fund and the promotion of poor, structurally weak regions. Funds that make up around a third of the EU budget will pass through Fitto’s desk in the future. According to von der Leyen’s mission letter to Fitto, his work should achieve nothing less than “making European economies and societies more sustainable and resilient and better prepared for future challenges”.
With the weighty post for Fitto, von der Leyen is also securing the recently crumbled solidarity of Italy’s head of government Giorgia Meloni. In protest against previous exclusion in the distribution of key positions in the European Council, Meloni abstained from voting for von der Leyen as Commission President. With Fitto as Vice-President, Meloni will now receive the recognition she had hoped for in Italy. Fitto’s appointment will also appease the ECR group – which could be helpful in the future in close votes in Parliament.
Because as EPP leader Manfred Weber once aptly called him: Fitto serves as a link. From June 2019 to October 2022, he himself was Co-Chair of the ECR Group. He then moved to Meloni’s cabinet – where he is currently Minister for European Affairs and the Regions of Southern Italy. Unlike other new commissioners, Fitto is therefore no stranger to his assigned area of responsibility.
For the past two years, he has been responsible for the money from the reconstruction fund in Italy, which amounts to around €200 billion. A task that has little to do with party affiliation, which Fitto is said to have good contacts with the Italian Social Democrats.
Fitto is one of the few Fratelli d’Italia who can look back on many years of experience in politics at regional, national and European level. Born in 1969 in Maglie, a small town in the province of Lecce, he began his political career at the age of 20 in the regional politics of Apulia – at that time still as a member of the Democrazia Cristiana. After its collapse, Fitto moved through several successor parties until he joined Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia in 2001.
Fitto entered the European Parliament for the first time in 1999, but resigned from office just one year later because he had been elected President of his home region of Apulia. In 2006, he became a member of the national parliament, where he rose to become Minister for Regional Affairs in Berlusconi’s government in 2008. In 2014, Fitto returned to Brussels as an MEP, where he initially became part of the EPP.
However, he fell out with Berlusconi, left Forza Italia in 2015, founded his own party and also switched camps in the EU Parliament – joining the ECR group. After forming an electoral alliance with Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia in 2019 and being re-elected to the European Parliament for them, his small party Direzione Italia merged with the Fratelli.
Fitto has a trusting relationship with Meloni. He had already been in government with her for some time from 2008. It is therefore hardly surprising that she brought him into her cabinet as head of government. The three coalition parties in Rome were quickly able to agree on Fitto as a candidate for the EU Commission. The 55-year-old has excellent connections in Brussels and is also respected beyond party boundaries as reliable and fact-oriented. He is said to be sociable and a convinced European. He now only has to convince the skeptics on the left of the EPP of this. Almut Siefert