Changing of the guard in Brussels

Donald Trump made global headlines this week with his re-election to the US presidency after a four-year break.

At home, the long-awaited Irish general election was announced and candidates are already on the ground looking for votes.

However, the political change that will have most impact on Irish farmers was happening relatively under the radar in Brussels, with the incoming commissioners appearing before MEPs to have their nominations ratified.

The incoming European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen successfully passed his interview and will replace Janusz Wojciechowski in the next European Commission, which is scheduled to take up its duties on 1 December, subject to ratification by the European Parliament.

Proceedings from Brussels were available to watch online and the incoming commissioner, who is multi-lingual, handled his interrogation with ease.

He even included a line frequently used by former commissioner Phil Hogan, who regularly referred to farmers as being the “boots on the ground” that delivered EU policy, by saying that he would be a “boots on the ground” commissioner.

Farming background

Christophe Hansen is clearly politically astute and has the credentials for the role, coming from a family farming background, as indeed had his predecessor.

He certainly conveyed the impression of understanding the challenges facing farmers when speaking about the untimely death of his brother, who was running the family farm. However, his in-tray will be full when he takes his seat in the Berlaymont.

The first big challenge will be the Mercosur trade deal, which has been subject to post-agreement negation for more than five years to address EU concerns on the environment chapter.

This could be cleared as soon as 20/21 November in the margins of the G20 gathering in Brazil.

In his interview with MEPs, he made it clear that he wouldn’t be looking to tear up the agreement, even if he did express strong pro-farmer sentiment throughout.

France has been strongly opposed to Mercosur and getting its sign-off will be a priority ahead of the ratification process, which will require approval by both the Parliament and member states.

Budget challenge

The other big challenge will be securing an adequate budget for the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

This is now a sensitive subject for the Irish Government, as we are a net contributor, and EU demands on defence spending have only increased following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Despite no meaningful increase through several reforms at this stage, agriculture accounts for almost one third of the total CAP budget and increasing this will be a huge challenge.

His sentiments on generational renewal and simplification are a recurring theme with incoming agriculture commissioners. They are worthy ambitions, but attracting new entrants into such a low-income sector will continue to be a challenge in this Commission as it was in the last.

As for simplification, the current CAP has expanded well beyond agriculture and moved from production to land maintenance.

With this comes complexity and without a major pivot to core CAP values, it is difficult to see much scope for meaningful simplification either.

Coming from Luxembourg, the incoming commissioner will relate to the family farm structure better than commissioners from eastern Europe, where there remains a legacy of the huge collective state farming structure.

The relationship with farmers was at best stressed during the last Commission - having a relatively young commissioner for agriculture from a farming family is a chance for a reset in the relationship, but there will be challenges ahead.