- Food crisis: Germany’s special path in agricultural policy
- EU defense: more joint projects
- Macron and von der Leyen campaign EU treaty reform
- Citizens want CO2 capture for power plants
- Commission wants to limit EIAs for renewables
- Von der Leyen in Hungary: progress on oil embargo
- Slow progress on LNG negotiation in Qatar
- Scholz talks with Xi
- Match sues Google over Play Store fees
- Social emissions trading for buildings and transport is necessary and possible
The Conference on the Future of Europe ended yesterday. 800 EU citizens drafted 49 proposals for a better Europe. The next step is now to implement these proposals, “either by using the full limits of what we can do within the Treaties, or, yes, by changing the Treaties if need be,” said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the ceremony.
Meanwhile, the EU continues to prepare a full-scale oil embargo against Russia. Von der Leyen traveled to Hungary on Monday to “clarify issues related to sanctions and energy security” with Viktor Orbán.
To prevent a potential food shortage caused by the war in Ukraine, the EU Commission allows exceptions to the regulations on fallow land. Almost all EU countries want to use their fallow land for agriculture again, at least temporarily. Germany, however, is – once again – choosing a different path. Timo Landenberger explains the reasons in his analysis.
Where should the money that the EU wants to put into its defense come from? Next week, the Commission will present its analysis of both funding and investment gaps. In particular, joint projects between countries are to be promoted, because so far an inefficient distribution of resources has hindered the development of a European defense, according to Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Ella Joyner provides the background.
Ensuring that the introduction of the second, EU-wide emissions trading scheme is socially sustainable is not only necessary, but also possible, especially through a “regressive” CO2 price, write Martin Menner and Goetz Reichert of the Centre for European Policy Studies in today’s opinion piece. The lower the burden on citizens, the higher the acceptance of ETS 2 will be.
Lisa-Martina Klein
Feature
Food crisis: Germany’s special path in agricultural policy
The number of people experiencing acute famine around the world rose by more than a quarter last year. This is according to a report by the Global Network Against Food Crises, which was founded in 2016 by the EU, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program WFP. According to the Global Report on Food Crises, released Wednesday, about 193 million people in 53 countries did not have enough to eat in 2021, 40 million more than in the previous record year of 2020.
This precarious situation will be considerably exacerbated by the Ukraine crisis, according to the report. Like Russia, the country is one of the world’s biggest grain exporters. Numerous African countries depend on its exports. Egypt, the continent’s third-largest country by population, buys more than 80 percent of its wheat and corn from Russia and Ukraine, according to UN data, and Somalia even 100 percent.
But now, exports could fail completely. Moscow has imposed an export ban on grain. And agriculture in Ukraine is largely at a standstill due to the war. To this end, around 4.5 million tons of urgently needed grain are currently blocked in Ukrainian ports, the WFP reported a few days ago. This is because almost all food exports from the country are shipped by sea, but this route is blocked due to the war.
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