Attendees are responsible for booking their own rooms at the New York Hilton Midtown. Room reservations made by Thursday, May 23, 2019 will be eligible for the group rate of $399.00 plus applicable taxes and fees for single or double occupancy. The negotiated group rate is based on availability and applies to reservations for Sunday, June 9, 2019 through Wednesday, June 12, 2019.
Should businesses expect to rethink Chinese sourcing strategies? Will Chinese firms face similar pressures?
Chaired by Senior Practice Lead Rebecca Park
Discussion of food policy in Brussels is dominated by the Common Agricultural Policy, an instrument created 60 years ago and the frequent subject of fierce renegotiation, due to its accounting for nearly €60bn per year of EU spending, over a third of the EU’s budget, and the widely differing shares of this accessed by member states. A series of reforms in recent decades have sought to shift emphasis from subsidising production towards supporting rural development and incentivising stewardship of the environment.
The latter gained greater focus as the caucus of Green politicians has grown and as policymakers have identified greater links between land use, the energy transition (for example the cultivation of biofuels) and environmental issues such as biodiversity. Rising prices and shortages in 2022 have, however, led some of the CAP’s traditional supporters in France, Poland and Romania to argue for a renewed focus on security of supply, or “food security”, and to challenge the ring-fencing of spending on environmental objectives. This sets the scene for a contentious entry into force of the latest review, “The new CAP”, on 1 January 2023 (negotiated before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) and the likelihood member states may seek new flexibilities for how funds are deployed. There will be arguments for shielding consumers directly with support payments or price controls, but also to try to increase domestic supply through investments in production.
As well as being one of the world’s most interventionist powers in food and agriculture through spending, EU regulation also plays a key role in shaping the food sector. The most high profile examples are restrictions on genetically modified foods, the protection of regional monopolies in certain branded products through ‘geographic indicators’ and the overarching General Food Law Regulation. But there is a long tail of prescriptive definitions of foods, from chocolate to flavourings to processed meats, that deliberately limit the scope for innovation or productivity gains on the grounds of consumer protection.
Should food inflation persist, pressure may grow to expose this to the push for better regulation that has affected other sectors since the early 2000s, reviewing admin burdens, pursuing simplification and improving impact assessments of new proposals. More likely in the short term, however, will be greater use of investigatory tools to identify any anti-competitive behaviours, for example through the agricultural markets task force, which is running a survey on unfair trading practices in the food chain through Q1 of 2023.
Our co-chairs, Peter Mandelson and Arancha González Laya were joined by senior EU policymakers, industry leaders, and the international community to discuss:
-- The impact and outlook for the EU's Common Agricultural Policy;
-- To consider the role of policy frameworks to maintain global supply chains for food;
-- The ways in which the EU model of food and farming support differ from approaches in other markets;
-- And finally, how customs regulation and practice facilitate food trade.
We heard from:
-- Janusz Wojciechowski, EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development and Peter Mandelson on the impact and outlook of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy;
-- Wolfgang Burtscher, Director-General, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, European Commission; Julia Friederike Harnal, Vice President Public Affairs Agricultural Solutions, BASF SE; Herbert Dorfmann, Member of European Parliament; Aneke Schwager, Director Government Relations, Impossible Foods on the future of farming policy;
-- Edwini Kessie, Director, Agriculture and Commodities Division, the World Trade Organization; John Clarke, Director for International Affairs in the European Commission's DG Agriculture and Cristina Rueda Catry, Cabinet Expert for Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission on the ways in which changing food regulation can become an obstacle to food trade;
-- Tiffany McDonald, Senior Adviser, at Global Counsel and Arancha González Laya on what's next for the EU's trade.
Global Counsel works with companies and investors across a wide range of sectors to anticipate the ways in which politics, regulation and public policymaking create both risk and opportunity – and to develop and implement strategies to meet these challenges.
From high-level in-conversations and policy webinars, to large scale conferences, our events draw from a network of government, industry, academia and civil society to foster debate and discussion.
