LONDON — Britain is sleepwalking through its biggest food safety crisis since the horsemeat scandal of 2013, a group of influential MPs warned as they dismissed a recent personal import ban on EU meat and cheese as “toothless.” The government moved in April to prohibit travelers from EU countries from bringing meat and dairy products into the U.K. following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease across the continent. However, as reported by POLITICO, the ban has not been fully enforced, with experts warning that U.K. health officials lack the funds to uphold the rules. In a damning report on Monday, the parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee warned that “alarming amounts” of meat and dairy products were still being illegally imported for both personal consumption and sale. The committee welcomed the government’s ban on personal imports of meat and dairy from the EU but described it as “toothless,” with prohibited products continuing to enter the U.K. through airports, seaports and the Eurotunnel in freight, parcels, personal baggage and passenger vehicles. “It would not be an exaggeration to say that Britain is sleepwalking through its biggest food safety crisis since the horse meat scandal,” committee chair Alistair Carmichael said. “A still bigger concern is the very real risk of a major animal disease outbreak. The single case of foot-and-mouth disease in Germany this year, most likely caused by illegally imported meat, cost its economy one billion euros.” He urged the government to “get a grip on what has become a crisis” by establishing a national taskforce, boosting food crime intelligence networks, enforcing “real deterrents,” and giving port health and local authorities the resources and powers they need.   During the committee’s nine-month inquiry into animal and plant health, experts painted a gruesome picture of the situation at the border, describing cases of meat arriving in unsanitary conditions, often in the back of vans, stashed in plastic bags, suitcases and cardboard boxes. At the Port of Dover alone, port health officials say they intercepted 70 tons of illegal meat imports from vehicles between January and the end of April, compared with 24 tons during the same period in 2024. During a Public Accounts Committee session on animal disease last week, Emma Miles, director general for food, biosecurity and trade at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said it was unclear whether the increase in the number of seizures of illegal meat at Dover was due to a rise in crime or to better surveillance. “When you’re catching people it might just mean you are doing better surveillance and enforcement,” she said.

BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen defended the EU’s controversial trade accord with Donald Trump, warning that failure to strike a deal would have been a gift to Europe’s rivals. “Imagine for a moment that the two largest democratic economies had not managed to reach an agreement and instead launched a trade war — only Moscow and Beijing would be celebrating,” von der Leyen wrote in an op-ed published Saturday night in El Mundo. The Commission chief painted the four-page framework agreement, finalized last week, as a deliberate choice for “stability and predictability over escalation and confrontation.”  The pact caps most U.S. tariffs on EU goods at 15 percent, including on cars and pharmaceuticals, and carves out exemptions for generics and aircraft parts. Critics, including former World Trade Organization boss Pascal Lamy, have warned the accord risks undermining Europe’s credibility as a defender of rules-based trade. But von der Leyen insisted the EU had secured a unique outcome: a single tariff ceiling of 15 percent, unlike the layered rates Washington applies to other partners. She also stressed that EU food safety, health and digital rules remain untouched, and pointed to Brussels’ efforts to diversify trade ties, including through deals with Mexico, the South American bloc of Mercosur countries, and a goal of clinching a pact with India before year’s end.  Von der Leyen echoed former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, who on Friday called to tear down internal market barriers, arguing they do more to hobble growth than any foreign tariff. “If Europe wants to fully unlock its potential, this is the most urgent challenge,” she wrote.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is raising the alarm over a rapidly escalating bird flu crisis as the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus spreads from poultry to mammals, fueling concerns over food security and a potential human spillover. The virus, first identified in 1996 in China, has forced mass culls worldwide, with Europe losing 47.7 million farmed birds in the 2021-22 epidemic and the U.S. culling at least 166 million since the latest outbreak began. The fallout has sent egg prices soaring in the U.S. FAO Deputy Director-General Godfrey Magwenzi on Monday described the situation as unprecedented, leading to “serious impacts” on food production, rural jobs, local economies and prices for consumers. The virus isn’t stopping at poultry barns. H5N1 has also surfaced in wild and domestic mammals, including zoo animals, pets and dairy cattle. While human infections remain rare, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) have identified genetic markers that could increase the virus’s ability to adapt to mammals — including humans. However, there is no confirmed evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission. FAO officials are urging governments to ramp up surveillance, strengthen biosecurity and bolster outbreak response. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol said, emphasizing the need for coordinated global action to curb the virus’s spread and prevent further disruptions to food systems. While wild birds play a key role in transmission, evidence also points to high-density poultry farming as a factor that can accelerate outbreaks when biosecurity measures fail. Large farms, where thousands of birds are housed close together, create ideal conditions for the virus to spread and mutate. For now, public health officials insist the risk remains low. But scientists warn that the virus’s spread in mammals gives it more chances to evolve, increasing its potential to infect humans.

Ursula von der Leyen is rounding out the first 100 days of her second term in office — and what a whirlwind it’s been. Since the European Commission president won a second mandate, Donald Trump’s return to the White House in the United States has upended the transatlantic relationship, calling into question the existence of NATO as well as U.S. support for Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia. The pressure coming from Washington — which has threatened the EU with 25 percent tariffs and warned it may not defend countries that fail to spend enough on defense — has forced the Commission to speed up work on reforms designed to bolster the bloc’s defenses and make it more competitive on the global stage.  “On all these issues, the direction of travel was always clear,” von der Leyen told a press conference on Sunday. “What has changed is the sense of urgency. Something fundamental has shifted.” Indeed, among the key reforms von der Leyen’s Commission is due to present this month is a so-called “White Paper” on defense that’s meant to spell out options on how Europe can finance a major defense rampup.  But Trump’s moves on Ukraine, as well as his threats not to defend countries that don’t spend enough on defense, have moved that timeline forward, with EU leaders endorsing plans to spend €800 billion in the coming years during an emergency meeting in Brussels last week — front-running the White Paper. In addition to defense, the European Commission president laid out a series of promises for the EU’s executive body to fulfill in the first 100 days of its term. But that was before Trump was elected and halted aid to Ukraine, threatened the EU with sweeping tariffs, and threw the established world order into doubt. The pressure coming from Washington has forced the Commission to speed up work on reforms designed to bolster the bloc’s defenses and make it more competitive on the global stage. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images So, how have von der Leyen’s promises held up? Here’s POLITICO’s verdict. 1. CLEAN INDUSTRIAL DEAL What von der Leyen said: “There is an equally urgent need to decarbonize and industrialize our economy at the same time,” von der Leyen wrote in her second-term manifesto. Her solution: A “Clean Industrial Deal” that would revive the EU’s struggling, heavy-polluting industries — think steel or cement — while reducing their carbon footprint, and also boost manufacturers of new climate-friendly technologies such as electric heat pumps.  Did she hit her target? The Clean Industrial Deal arrived on Feb. 26 (day 88) and responded to many of industry’s demands. The strategy outlined steps to reduce energy prices, source raw materials and create demand for low-carbon products. It was more wobbly on financing — with a new $100 billion fund mainly drawing from existing or already earmarked cash and betting on governments volunteering more money — and addressing trade pressures.  Meanwhile, although the Commission was also eager to roll back green regulations, its promised 2040 climate target — which green groups, clean-tech firms and EU countries like Denmark wanted to incorporate within the Clean Industrial Deal — has still not been published.  Where will the EU go next? The Clean Industrial Deal will unfold over the coming years with more than two dozen legislative proposals, legal reforms and sector-specific “action plans.” The big items for this year include a reformed state-aid framework coming in summer — meant to deliver on some of the investment and energy price promises — and an “Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator Act” toward the end of the year that will establish a label for low-carbon products and made-in-EU green requirements for government spending. And that 2040 target should come soon as well.  Score: — By Zia Weise 2. EUROPEAN ACTION PLAN ON THE CYBERSECURITY OF HOSPITALS AND HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS What von der Leyen said: Europe “must do more” to protect its health-care system from an ever-increasing barrage of cyberattacks, which can knock out vital systems or lock doctors and nurses out of sensitive patient data until criminals get a ransom. The EU’s answer? Ramped-up technical support, an early-warning system and rapid response teams. Did she hit her target? Sort of. The EU published its plan on Jan. 15 (day 46), which got a reasonably warm response. There was, however, one big caveat: It all depends on money, and the plan made little mention of that — even though cash remains “the most important issue,” according to Tomislav Sokol, a Croatian member of the European Parliament with the center-right European People’s Party group, in comments made when the plan was published.  Digitaleurope, a trade body, reckons the plan is a “good starting point” but echoed concerns about a lack of clarity on cash.  Where will the EU go next? The technical: The Commission will now consult on the plan, with various deadlines to hit throughout this year and next. The political: The cash question is for EU capitals to address, said Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi when unveiling the plan. “I understand that this is a problem across the board in Europe, that there’s not enough resources dedicated to [protecting data]. But we’re making the point with this proposal that there would have to be,” he said. The success of the plan “will, of course, depend on the support from the European member states,” said Wim Hafkamp, managing director at Z-Cert, the Dutch computer emergency response team for the health sector.  Score: — By Sam Clark 3. AI FACTORIES INITIATIVE What von der Leyen said: Von der Leyen pledged to ensure European startups had access to the necessary computing power to compete in the accelerating global artificial intelligence race by “building” massive AI supercomputers, also known as AI factories. With many European startups currently relying on U.S. computing power, the move could also be read as a push to become more technologically sovereign.  Did she hit her target? Kind of. On Dec. 11 (day 11), the European Commission announced it would contribute half of a planned €1.5 billion investment into seven European sites. But the victory was short-lived: U.S. President Donald Trump assumed office in January and announced a $500 billion AI hardware plan, moving the goalposts somewhat.  So the Commission moved again. On Feb. 10, at the AI Action Summit in Paris, von der Leyen unveiled a plan to mobilize €200 billion for hardware, including a €20 billion fund to build four AI gigafactories aimed at training the most complex AI models.  Where will the EU go next? On this one we’re only getting started. The Commission is expected to grant funding to five more AI factories in March. The road to the gigafactories is even longer: There’s no clear breakdown on how much funding will be provided, nor any details on how much of that will come from the EU budget.  Score: — By Pieter Haeck 4. WHITE PAPER ON DEFENSE What von der Leyen said: In her political guidelines the Commission president said she would present a White Paper on the Future of European Defence to identify investment needs. In the past months the Commission made clear that the policy document would also include financing options to help the bloc massively boost defense spending.  Did she hit her target? Yes and no. Von der Leyen technically hasn’t presented her White Paper yet, with publication slated for March 19 (day 109).  However, on March 4 (day 91) she did present a plan to send loans of up to €150 billion to governments to help them increase their military expenditure. The money can be spent on artillery, missiles, ammunition, drones and anti-drone systems, as well as on weapons for Ukraine.  Von der Leyen also said she would trigger the EU’s national escape clause, a mechanism to prevent defense spending from being included in the punishment mechanism for countries breaching the bloc’s deficit rules.  Her plans were approved by EU leaders on March 6.  Where will the EU go next? The Commission now has to translate the financing proposals into actual legislative instruments.  The EU’s executive branch is also still expected to present the White Paper on Defense, which could include more financing options, as well as more details on the EU’s industrial priorities for armament.  Score: — By Laura Kayali 5. VISION FOR AGRICULTURE AND FOOD What von der Leyen said: Von der Leyen pledged to present a Vision for Agriculture and Food, building on an agrifood roundtable held during the first half of last year. “We need to overcome contradictions … that’s why the strategic dialogue on the future of farming has begun,” she told lawmakers in July. “I’ve promised to listen carefully and to draw important lessons.” Did she hit her target? On Feb. 19 (day 81), Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen delivered an underwhelming vision that tried to please everybody with better conditions for farmers, fairer supply chains and a rethinking of sustainability policies. But for many, this big, fancy vision — which is to replace the previous Farm to Fork Strategy — has landed more as a farmer-friendly agenda that’s big on promises but short on cash. Where will the EU go next? The Commission is expected to move forward with the first part of the plan in April: to cut red tape on the €300 billion-plus farm budget by easing requirements to access the cash. By the end of the year, Hansen wants to crack down on other rules affecting farmers beyond the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) — such as environmental and food safety policies. Score: — By Paula Andrés 6. YOUTH POLICY DIALOGUES What von der Leyen said: In her guidelines von der Leyen said young people should be able to use their voices and shape their futures. She also said she wanted her commissioners to lead by example and to engage in “youth policy dialogues” within the first 100 days.  Did she hit her target? Yes, albeit narrowly. Sixteen of the 28 commissioners held their youth policy dialogues the week before the deadline (days 93-97), while three commissioners are set to hold dialogues on March 10 (day 100): justice chief Michael McGrath, tech sovereignty boss Henna Virkkunen and innovation lead Ekaterina Zaharieva. Deadline work resonates well with young people.  Where will the EU go next? The youth policy dialogues are meant to be a recurring event in which commissioners talk to young people once a year. The bigger question is how — or if — this will feed the Commission’s policy work.  Youth Commissioner Glenn Micallef, who played wheelchair basketball during his dialogue in Athens, told POLITICO that the experience of wheelchair sports is “a whole new dimension” compared to just reading up on inclusive sports.  Score: — By Pieter Haeck 7. ENLARGEMENT POLICY REVIEW What von der Leyen said: Outlining priorities several months ago, von der Leyen zeroed in on enlargement — expanding the bloc’s membership — as well as the need to tweak the EU’s rules to make space for new members. Paris and Berlin have both argued that if the EU is grow to as many as 30 or 35 members it will need to change rules on agricultural aid, for instance, to ensure that existing members aren’t penalized. This gave rise to von der Leyen’s call for an in-depth “policy review” examining all aspects of enlargement. In a foretaste of this intricate process — potentially including changes to the EU’s basic treaties — a preparatory document published in July was 22 pages long. Did she hit her target? Insofar as a document will be published, yes. That’s what the Commission does. But this is one case where the savage geopolitics of the day is likely to derail the EU’s natural bureaucratic pace.   Where will the EU go next? Von der Leyen has already flagged that Ukraine could join the bloc by 2030, possibly earlier. Her enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, has floated the possibility of giving Ukraine faster access to parts of the EU’s single market as part of an accelerated accession process. “We are also working on plans to accelerate the integration of Ukraine into many more parts of the Single Market — to attract more investments, to strengthen Europe-wide value chains, and to create new opportunities for both Ukrainian and European businesses,” Kos said last week. Naturally, all this happened before the policy review was published. Score: — By Nicholas Vinocur

BRUSSELS — Donald Trump is an equal-opportunity mercantilist. When it comes to the European Union’s €198 billion trade surplus with the United States, he’ll claw at any sector he can. Brandishing 25 percent tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, the U.S. president has demanded that the bloc buy more American cars, fossil fuels, weapons, pharmaceuticals — and food. “They don’t take our farm products, they take almost nothing and we take everything from them … tremendous amounts of food and farm products,” Trump complained to journalists in Florida earlier this month, decrying his country’s €18 billion deficit in agri-food trade with Europe. Taking more of the first four is feasible. The Commission can lower its 10 percent duty on imported automobiles, while EU countries can purchase less oil from Kazakhstan, fewer missiles from South Korea, and smaller drug batches from Switzerland. These demands would hurt local industry, but they are doable if Brussels wants to appease the irascible ultranationalist. The fifth is not. A range of culinary, phytosanitary and political obstacles bar the way to Europe’s importing most American staples — from Texan beef and Kentucky chicken to Wisconsin milk and Kansas wheat. Then there’s the fact the new EU commissioners for agriculture and animal welfare, Christophe Hansen and Olivér Várhelyi, want to tightly regulate agri-food imports. It may be a bitter pill for the president to swallow. But not even his “Art of the Deal” can vanquish Europe’s Art of the Meal. THE INVISIBLE HAND PICKS EUROPEAN FOOD  Contrary to what Trump says, the imbalance in agri-food trade isn’t due to unfair customs duties. U.S. and EU rates are similarly low for most products: zero for hard liquor, a few percent for wine and cereals, and 5 percent to 10 percent for fruits, vegetables, cured meats, confectionery, canned food and processed goods. The exceptions are EU dairy and pork (often upward of 20 percent), yet these aren’t areas where American rivals have much of a chance anyway, given that the EU runs a massive surplus in both categories (Germany and Spain are top exporters). Moreover, the U.S. is protective too — for example, on beef — and accepted higher EU dairy duties in the 1988 Uruguay round of GATT negotiations. Why? Because it extracted a promise that the EU wouldn’t subsidize oilseed production. Why would that matter to the Americans? Because that’s what they’re best at cultivating. Farms in the U.S. are on average 10 times bigger than in the EU and are able to churn out raw materials: hunks of meat, blocks of cheese and silos full of cereals. However, apart from the odd Californian wine, the U.S. doesn’t have many specialty products to vaunt. Europe is the opposite: A mosaic of small, regionally diverse farms, its producers are uncompetitive in most commodities, but possess an advantage in traditional foods. For example, the continent has five times more “geographical indication” trademarks than the U.S., allowing its farmers to transform simple crops into premium goods.  It’s bad agribusiness but great gastronomy, which is the second reason Americans spend more on EU farm goods than vice versa. While Americans happily gobble and slurp European GIs, Europeans typically find U.S. foods too fatty, salty, sugary or alcoholic for their palates. “If you look at the product composition, it’s very different,” said John Clarke, until recently the EU’s top agricultural trade negotiator. “The EU exports mostly high-value products: wine, spirits, charcuterie, olive oil, cheese. The U.S. exports low-value commodities: soya, maize, almonds … the fact [these have] a lower unit value is a fact of life.” During Trump’s first term, a bad harvest in Brazil and Argentina at least gave Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker an opportunity to offer Washington an apparent concession: The EU would buy more American soybeans. Trump gleefully celebrated what was in fact a financial necessity for European farmers, who need soy for animal feed. This time that won’t work, though. Brazilian grain harvests are near record levels, while Ukraine is investing heavily in oilseeds. The Commission is rolling out a protein strategy that  encourages supply diversification and more domestic production. And Europeans are eating less red meat, dragging soybean demand down. PHYTOSANITARY PARANOIA If Trump wants Europeans to eat more American food, he’ll have to convince them to swallow something even tougher: U.S. food safety standards. Europeans might buy American software, movies and weapons, but they aren’t keen on U.S. beef pumped with hormones, chlorine-washed chicken or genetically modified corn. The main reason? Brussels’ precautionary principle — a regulatory approach that requires proof a product is safe before it can be sold. The U.S., by contrast, operates on a risk-based system, where anything not proven harmful is fair game. That divergence has created a trade minefield. American beef exports are capped at 35,000 metric tons annually under a special quota, thanks to an EU-wide ban on hormone-treated meat. U.S. poultry is largely locked out because of pathogen reduction treatments — a fancy way of saying Americans rinse their chicken in antimicrobial washes the EU deems unacceptable. Genetically modified crops, a staple of U.S. agribusiness, also face strict EU restrictions, requiring lengthy approvals and labeling rules that spook European consumers. Pesticides are another flash point. Today, over 70 different pesticides banned in the EU as toxic to human health and the environment remain widespread in U.S. grain and fruit farming. That includes chlorpyrifos, an insecticide linked to brain damage in children, and paraquat, a weedkiller associated with a higher long-term risk of Parkinson’s disease. As a result, Brussels imposes residue limits that frequently force U.S. growers to create separate, EU-compliant supply chains. While Trump may rage about tariffs and trade imbalances, it’s Brussels’ food safety regulations — not import duties — that are keeping much American food off European plates. And with the EU mulling even stricter crackdowns on imports that don’t conform to its standards, expect the transatlantic trade menu to get even leaner. DON’T ANGER THE FARMERS Trump may not be aware, but European capitals also witnessed furious farmer protests last year. Fear of foreign competition was one of the main triggers, with unions bitterly criticizing imports from Ukraine and South America’s Mercosur bloc for their looser production standards, laxer agrochemical use and cheaper agricultural land. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have still not lifted their illegal blockades on Ukrainian grain, and the Commission is in no position to force them to do so. In fact, Brussels has responded by making fair pricing for farmers the lodestar of its upcoming agri-food policy. The EU even wants to apply “mirror clauses” to imports to align rules on animal welfare and pesticides, according to a leaked draft of a long-term policy vision due out this week. A surge in U.S. imports would likely prompt the same attacks. These could be politically decisive ahead of stormy presidential races this year in Poland and Romania, two European breadbaskets, as well as major elections in France, Italy and Spain in the next two years.  So is there no solution to Trump’s hunger for agri-trade parity? It seems not, unless the president decides to massively expand the U.S. military’s presence in the EU, bringing tens of thousands more peanut butter-loving troops to defend the continent’s security. It’s a crazy idea of course. Then again … Giovanna Coi contributed reporting.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Pasta, pizza, and Parmigiano — delicious? Absolutely. But in 2025, they’re also deeply political. This week on EU Confidential, host Sarah Wheaton digs into how food has become a battleground, with POLITICO agriculture reporter Alessandro Ford explaining how Italy’s far-right — and politicians across Europe — are using the Mediterranean diet to push back against Brussels. From Nutri-Score to climate policies, we unpack the rise of gastro-nationalism and how a diet once rooted in simplicity is now fueling a political fight. We also have another installment of our Berlaymont Who’s Who series: Sarah sits down with POLITICO tech reporter Pieter Haeck to discuss Henna Virkkunen, the European Commissioner for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy. With online election meddling on the rise and Elon Musk challenging EU regulations, Virkkunen is in charge of enforcing the Digital Services Act — but does Brussels have the resolve to keep Big Tech in check? Further reading: The Mediterranean diet is a lie, by Alessandro Ford.

German livestock farmers fear they could suffer crippling costs after the country’s first case of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in nearly four decades was detected in a farm near Berlin last Friday. The disease has the potential to devastate animal agriculture. An outbreak in the United Kingdom in 2001 caused an agricultural and tourism crisis costing more than €15 billion. Authorities slaughtered more than 6 million animals in efforts to eradicate the disease. “We should concentrate on preventing the spread of the disease,” European Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen told German Radio on Wednesday, while also acknowledging the “direct impact on the economic situation of businesses” that trade restrictions will bring. After the first case was confirmed in water buffaloes, local authorities quickly moved to ban animal transport in the state of Brandenburg, ordering the killing of the whole herd as well as 200 pigs from a nearby farm. FMD is a contagious viral disease of cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. Symptoms include fever, sores, blisters and overall reluctance to move or eat. While the mortality rate is less than 5 percent in adult animals, they’re often slaughtered to contain outbreaks. In addition, Germany has suspended veterinary certificates for any live animal exports as a precaution for up to nine months after the eradication of the disease.  However, some of Germany’s largest trading partners outside of the EU have taken matters into their own hands and imposed import bans.  The U.K. — Germany’s biggest animal products customer outside of the bloc — has halted the import of cattle, pigs and sheep on Tuesday, causing a backlog of shipments. following similar moves by South Korea and Mexico. “We definitely have to prevent it from becoming a chain reaction,” warned Hansen, who praised German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir’s handling of the crisis. The EU’s most recent FMD outbreak happened in 2011 in wild boar in Bulgaria. “The outbreak was managed under EU regulations, which included measures such as culling and a standstill on animal movements,” a spokesperson for the European Food Safety Agency told POLITICO, adding that no vaccination was needed. However, “while mortality rates in animals are generally low, the disease can lead to severe economic losses in production animals and disruption in the national and international trade,” the spokesperson added. A €5 BILLION PROBLEM In 2024, German meat exports reached almost €5 billion, but according to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture “it is too early at this stage to make any statements about the extent of the economic damage — be it within the EU or with non-EU countries.” On the other hand, the German Farmers Association (DBV) already expects the cost to be “massive,” its General Secretary Bernhard Krüsken said. He suspects that the virus has been around for longer than a week and has urged federal leaders to find a way for animal products from FMD-free areas to continue to be exported. For animal welfare campaigners, this is only a part of a broader, systemic problem. “One disease chases the other (African swine fever, bluetongue, FMD), quickly causing hysteria in governments and fear for national economies due to industrial farming and a globalised trade in live animals,” Iris Baumgärtner of the Animal Welfare Foundation, a German NGO, told POLITICO. Under the bloc’s rules, intra-EU movement of animals could continue from FMD-free German regions, but some countries are also taking their own measures. The Netherlands quickly imposed a ban on the transport of thousands of German calves in the country. According to Agriculture Minister Femke Wiersma, at least 3,600 calves originating from the affected German state have been distributed across more than 125 Dutch farms. Similarly, the Belgian food safety agency has blocked 16 farms that received around 150 cows from Germany. “I have huge concerns about the welfare of unweaned male calves, [which have] anyway [been] degraded to a by-product of milk production, if they cannot be sold. Dairy farmers have no use, space or time for them due to their high level of specialisation,” Baumgärtner added. Özdemir met with livestock producers on Monday and said that trade from FMD-free areas in Germany was still possible while the ministry is “doing everything we can to enable exports to as many [extra-EU] markets as possible as quickly as possible.”  The minister also wants to use the upcoming International Green Week, an annual agrifood fair in Berlin, to reassure trading partners. Hansen is also expected at the event — but has canceled a visit to a farm in Brandenburg. “I don’t want to be responsible for the spread of a virus myself,” he said. Hansen will discuss next steps with Özdemir on Thursday. “This is the first [FMD] case. For the second case, should it come, we would sit down together and talk,” Hansen said, “but we have to go one step at a time.”

Belgium’s Federal Food Agency (FASFC) issued a warning Tuesday against eating Christmas trees after the city of Ghent recommended that people do so to cut back on waste. “Christmas trees are not meant to end up in the food chain,” FASFC spokesperson Hélène Bonte said Tuesday. According to the agency, most ornamental Christmas trees are heavily treated with pesticides and other chemicals to preserve their appearance and protect them from pests, rendering them unsafe for food consumption. “To avoid issues with emerging woolly aphids, Christmas trees are often treated intensively,” said Bonte. (Woolly aphids are small sap-sucking insects often found on plants and capable of causing and spreading plant diseases.) “For this reason alone, the FASFC cannot agree with such initiatives,” she added. The warning comes after the city of Ghent’s local council launched a campaign last Thursday promoting several ways to recycle Christmas trees after the holiday season. One of the suggestions included making soup from pine needles, inspired by a traditional Scandinavian recipe. “Your Christmas tree is edible as long as it is not yew, and your tree has not been treated with a fire-resistant spray,” Ghent Climate City wrote in a social media post. According to FASFC, however, this is an unsafe practice, as it’s not easily possible for consumers to determine if Christmas trees have been treated with flame retardants. “The consumption of the pine species ‘yew’ can have serious, even fatal, consequences,” warned Bonte. Bonte also explained there is a difference between commercially grown Christmas trees and the naturally grown pines traditionally used in certain Nordic recipes. “The needles of pines from unspoiled nature in northern countries are completely different from those of trees cultivated for Christmas,” she said.

The European Union and Switzerland have concluded negotiations on several sectoral agreements expected to deepen their relationship, they announced today. The broad package will grant Switzerland more access to the EU’s single market, while Bern will have to apply current and future EU law on free movement of people. “We are now giving joint answers to the global realities that we all have to face. We are living in an era of extremely rapid change with many shifts ongoing,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, speaking in Bern alongside Viola Amherd, the president of the Swiss Confederation. Existing agreements governing Switzerland’s access to the EU’s single market have been updated and several new elements have been added, such as on food safety, health and electricity. The deal will allow Switzerland to participate in several EU research programs, including Horizon Europe, and another part of the agreement will cover Bern’s participation in the EU’s Space Agency. As of Jan. 1, Brussels will set up transitional guidelines allowing Swiss applicants immediate access to the EU’s research programs, von der Leyen told reporters. The Alpine country will also have to pay €375 million annually into the EU budget. The two sides started negotiating a landmark partnership agreement in 2014, with a few hiccups along the way, including when Switzerland walked out of talks because of issues related to freedom of movement and state aid. Now that the talks are concluded, a lengthy process to the ratification kicks off. The Commission will legally check and translate the text into all EU languages, before it is sent to the Council and the Parliament. On the Swiss side, the deal will then still need to be approved by the Swiss parliament and by referendum, expected in 2028.

The European Parliament approved Belgian and Swedish commissioner-hopefuls Hadja Lahbib and Jessika Roswall on Wednesday — but only after significant backroom horse-trading. The green light for Lahbib and Roswall was part of a deal between the European People’s Party, the Renew group and the Socialists & Democrats, four lawmakers and four staffers told POLITICO. It came after the EPP’s Roswall flunked her parliamentary hearing, putting in a disappointing performance as she attempted to convince MEPs that despite her lack of experience in environmental policymaking, she had the chops to become the bloc’s environment commissioner. Lahbib, from the liberal Renew group, performed well in her own hearing, but was on shaky ground going into it due to her controversial reputation in Belgium and a series of gaffes. With both the liberals and the EPP determined to protect their commissioner-hopefuls, they resorted to a strategy of mutually assured destruction: The EPP would only approve Renew’s Lahbib if the liberals cleared Roswall. “Obviously, the two negotiations for the two commissioners were connected, and it was not possible for us to agree on Roswall without having EPP agreeing on Lahbib and vice versa,” lead Renew MEP Pascal Canfin, who was involved in the negotiations, told reporters after the talks. But there was more to the deal than just the commissioner quid-pro-quo. In a meeting on Wednesday, S&D chief Iratxe García, Renew boss Valérie Hayer and EPP President Manfred Weber used the Lahbib-Roswall stalemate to agree on the competences of the health committee — which the Parliament wants to upgrade from a sub-committee to a fully fledged one, Canfin and others confirmed. Despite a political agreement in July to upgrade the committee’s status, implementation had stalled as political groups couldn’t agree on which responsibilities to keep within the environment committee’s remit, and which ones to pass on to health. Per Wednesday’s multi-layered deal, the health committee will assume responsibility for everything related to public health policies such as health systems, tobacco, pharmaceutical policy and medical devices, while environment will keep food safety, pesticides, environmental health and air quality, Canfin said. The agreement was a major win for the S&D, which had feared the health committee might encroach onto the territory of the environment committee — chaired by one of its own, according to an MEP who spoke on condition of anonymity. At first, lawmakers wanted to include as part of the package deal a decision on new amendments from the EPP on the EU’s deforestation regulation ahead of next week’s voting session in the European Parliament, several MEPs indicated. But ultimately, “it was agreed that it will be out of the scope of the discussion,” Canfin said.  EYE FOR AN EYE  Roswall’s hearing on Tuesday left many lawmakers disappointed with the Swede’s failure to provide detailed answers. Some groups initially wanted to send Roswall additional questions to answer. Eventually, Roswall’s evaluation meeting was postponed to Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. Despite Lahbib putting in a good performance during her own hearing on Wednesday, rumors started swirling that the EPP would hold the liberal nominee hostage to Roswall’s approval. An EPP spokesman explained the group wasn’t happy with Lahbib, as she “was looking for an ideological agenda rather than common EU interest.” As Lahbib’s evaluation meeting neared, political groups decided to postpone the meeting from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. to match the timing of Roswall’s, effectively interlinking their outcomes. Additional reporting by Eddy Wax and Barbara Moens.