Agriculture
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Portrait: Isabella Lövin – The MEP who never gives up
8 May 20134531 Fokus Stockholm -
Agriculture: ‘Romania, the new Eldorado for farm land’
8 May 2013608PresseuropJurnalul Naţional -
Poland: ‘Slovaks have a run-in with us’
27 March 20133223PresseuropGazeta Wyborcza -
Czech Republic: ‘Nečas cut farmers’ euro-subsidies more than he needed’
13 March 2013121PresseuropHospodářské Noviny -
European Parliament: Tackling the overfishing problem
8 February 201359PresseuropLibération, La Vanguardia, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung -
CAP: The Green revolution hits Europe
30 January 201358315 La Repubblica Rome -
Geopolitics : Could Romania be Europe’s breadbasket?
8 January 20132666 Adevărul Bucharest -
EU budget: Scrap the CAP
27 November 201237338 The Guardian London -
Hungary: Orbán’s land war with EU
30 October 20121219 Le Monde Paris -
Romania: A fertile land of opportunity
30 April 20124201 Le Monde Paris -
Environment: EU too soft on pesticides
4 April 201263PresseuropLe Monde -
Agriculture: EU-Morocco agreement, a blow for Spain
17 February 20127410PresseuropEl País -
Food: Europe’s mountain of leftovers
20 January 20122084PresseuropEl País -
Fishing: Western Sahara sinks EU-Morocco accord
15 December 201160PresseuropEl País -
CAP: The crusade of Commissioner Cioloş
13 October 2011PresseuropPresseurop -
Italy: Indians keep the Grana Padano coming
9 September 2011454 The New York Times New York -
Environment: 'Clean' energy, scourge of our countryside
18 August 20113808 La Repubblica Rome -
Poland: Making a killing in organic food
8 August 20113281 Polityka Warsaw -
Poland: No more Eldorado on the Vistula
2 August 201141 NRC Handelsblad Amsterdam -
Ireland: Turf cutters against the EU
23 June 201171 The Guardian London -
E.coli panic: Madrid accuses Brussels of stinginess
8 June 20111PresseuropLa Razón -
Poland: Sugar market reform a bitter pill
23 February 2011PresseuropDziennik Gazeta Prawna -
Subsidies: New CAP to occupy middle ground
19 November 2010PresseuropLibération -
EU Budget: If the CAP fits, wear it
18 November 201047 Svenska Dagbladet Stockholm -
Fishing: Sweden and Denmark lock horns
15 November 201011PresseuropGöteborgs-Posten -
Food: Drought spells wheat crisis
6 August 2010PresseuropGazeta Wyborcza -
Romania: A veritable banana republic
21 July 2010PresseuropRomânia libera -
Austria: EU threatens home-farm bacon
24 March 20101PresseuropDer Standard -
GMO: Barroso tucks into hot potato
3 March 2010PresseuropLe Soir -
Livestock: Castrating piglets is offal
22 February 20101081 De Morgen Brussels -
Agriculture: GMOs in Barroso’s basket
15 February 2010441 Adevărul Bucharest -
Greece: Farmers march against austerity
26 January 2010PresseuropTo Ethnos -
Romania: A Happy and costly New Year
4 January 2010PresseuropRomânia libera -
Wine: War of the Tokays
23 December 200922 Polityka Warsaw -
Portugal: Nearer my cod...
15 December 2009PresseuropPúblico -
Livestock: Netherlands battles with Q fever
10 December 2009PresseuropNRC Handelsblad -
CO2: Toxic farming
23 November 2009281 Le Figaro Paris -
CAP: The great European sugar swindle
17 November 2009351 International Herald Tribune Paris -
DAIRY CRISIS: Milk industry going teats up
20 October 200918 La Repubblica Rome -
Economy: How to pay the milkman?
21 September 2009Le Monde Paris -
CAP: How green is my subsidy
3 September 200919 The Daily Telegraph London -
Common Agricultural Policy: No fiddling with dairy quotas
23 July 2009PresseuropLa Libre Belgique -
Czech Republic: Cheap land needs buyers, and sellers
6 July 200915 Respekt Prague -
France: Winemakers see red in EU rosé plan
2 June 2009PresseuropLe Monde -
Food: Beware of Eurofrauds
28 May 200940 La Stampa Turin
Since her election to the European Parliament in 2009, the Swedish MEP Isabella Lövin has pursued just one goal: to stop overfishing. Even if she has to upset the routines of elected officials and throw certain local communities out of work. 
The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, which is to be wrapped up this year, is resulting in a move towards sustainable development and greater fairness. However, it is being threatened by pressure from the agro-food lobbies, declares the founder of the Slow Food movement, who is launching an appeal to Europe's citizens and their MEPs. 
Against a backdrop of global crisis, the battle for resources is set to escalate in 2013. At a time when the EU is turning to Russia for its energy needs, one of its member states could supply the others with agricultural produce. But for this to happen, Romanians will have to take full advantage of their country’s assets. 
The Common Agricultural Policy was one of the contentious points of the last week’s EU summit. In the midst of an economic crisis, how can we join the French and defend spending €50 billion on a policy that benefits wealthy landowners and does nothing to protect the environment, rages ecology columnist George Monbiot. 
Currently reserved for Hungarians, farmlands will be available for purchase by foreigners from 2014. But as this EU imposed deadline looms, PM Viktor Orbán government is doing all it can to delay it. Meanwhile small farmers are battling with wealthy candidates, often close to sources of political power, for the most attractive lots. 
Attracted by the low cost of agricultural land, Farmers from elsewhere in the EU are taking the plunge to set up in Romania. In so doing they are contributing to a renewal of local agriculture which is increasingly oriented towards organic produce. 
Indian immigrants working in Italy’s agricultural heartland are keeping some of the country’s internationally renowned food industries alive. And not even the immigrant baiting Northern League is kicking up too much of a fuss. 
Crisis-hit Italian farmers are turning to the intensive cultivation of maize for biogas production, which is more profitable than growing it for food. But they’re laying themselves open to the mercies of speculators -- and they’re threatening biodiversity too, declares the founder of the Slow Food movement. 
When it comes to defrauding the EU, every nation has its specialty: the Greeks invented the plastic olive tree, while the Italians came up with virtual oranges. In Poland, phony organic farms are increasingly popular. As Polityka reports, the only problem is that they are perfectly legal. 
Since the 1990s hundreds of farmers from all over Europe and from the Netherlands in particular settled in Poland because land was cheap. Warsaw, though, now wants to encourage small local operators by penalising those from abroad. 
An EU environmental directive intended to protect boglands has pitched Irish farmers, protecting their traditional rights to cut turf, against environmentalists and the government. 
On 18 November, the European Commission will present outline proposals for the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. The main objective: to restore a balance in the sharing of costs and subsidies. 
For once pig farmers and piglets are in complete agreement: the barbarous and cruel practice of pig castration serves only to satisfy a pointless whim of German consumers — which is why it should be outlawed, insists Flemish poet and writer, Dimitri Verhulst. 
The newly-appointed European Commission has just started getting down to business and is already re-opening the debate over genetically modified organisms, which remains a bone of enduring contention between member states, pressure groups and Brussels. 
For more than 40 years, Hungary has been fighting to have the Tokaj wine region recognized as a protected designation of origin (PDO). Having battled with the Soviet Union, France and Italy, it is now in dispute with neighbouring Slovakia, which is putting up stiff resistance. 
A report on carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide fluxes in the European Union shows that greenhouse gases produced by agriculture are in excess of ecosystem absorption capacity. Le Figaro highlights the inherent dangers of intensive agriculture. 
Nowhere in the world is sugar more expensive than in the European Union. There are two reasons for this – generous CAP subsidies that prop up this €7bn industry…and lucrative scams perpetrated by the beneficiaries, Europe’s own sugar companies. A report from the International Herald Tribune. 
Over the last few months the collapse of milk prices in Europe has meant that many dairy businesses are operating at a loss, and some farmers have been forced to send their herds to the abattoir — a critical situation, which has added to the ongoing controversy over milk quotas and subsidies. La Repubblica reports from northern Italy. 
To regulate or not to regulate? Strikes and the protest dumping of milk in several European countries have met with a mixed response from Europe's member states and the European Commission. Le Monde reports on how the EU proposes to settle the account with its embattled milk producers. 
Countries like the UK are increasingly rankled that, while being forced to increase their contribution to the EU's CAP fund, most subsidies are siphoned off to multinationals and food conglomerates with little connection to traditional farming. Henry Samuels in the Daily Telegraph discovers, however, that the CAP remains a lifeline for small and medium sized French farms. 
Agricultural land costs much less in the Czech Republic than it does elsewhere in Europe. The Prague weekly Respekt wonders if a ban on land sales to non-Czechs, set to end in 2011, will herald an invasion of rich European farmers. 
Powdered wine, dairy-free cheese, GMO-based organic produce, stateless chickens, orange-less orangeade… – our shopping carts get packed with products that don’t quite fit the description on the label. The fault lies with the EU-imposed labeling regime – under pressure from agribusiness lobbies.