E.U. President Appoints New Agriculture Commissioner

The German politi­cian and pres­i­dent of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has pre­sented the com­po­si­tion of the new European Commission, with the 42-year-old Luxemburger Christophe Hansen des­ig­nated as the new Commissioner for Agriculture and Food.

The com­mis­sion, the European Union’s pri­mary exec­u­tive arm, com­prises 27 com­mis­sion­ers, one from each of the bloc’s mem­ber states.

Hansen belongs to the con­ser­v­a­tive cen­ter-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest polit­i­cal group in the European Parliament, with 188 mem­bers from all the E.U. coun­tries.

He has worked for the European Parliament since 2018, pri­mar­ily involved in draft­ing key E.U. leg­is­la­tion such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the bloc’s defor­esta­tion rules.

Hansen is expected to replace Poland’s Janusz Wojciechowski, who served as the E.U.’s agri­cul­ture com­mis­sioner for five years dur­ing the first term of von der Leyen’s pres­i­dency.

Wojciechowski released the lat­est revi­sion of the CAP, the bloc’s set of rules and sub­sidy schemes on farm­ing, which came into force in January 2023.

However, European farm­ers tar­geted the new CAP’s strict envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions for farm­ers and tight green farm­ing require­ments in demon­stra­tions that took place across the con­ti­nent in early 2024.

Coming from a farm­ing fam­ily from one of the small­est E.U. mem­ber states with lim­ited arable land, Hansen will have to rebuild the bridges between Brussels and the bloc’s farm­ers after their recent protests.

Europe’s farm­ers, how­ever, seem to have caught much of the atten­tion of Brussels’ largest polit­i­cal power.

The cen­ter-right EPP, the polit­i­cal home of von der Leyen and Hansen, has dubbed itself the E.U.’s ​“farm­ers’ party. ” Some of its mem­bers reg­u­larly call for a fair income and less red tape for European farm­ers.

In a speech in the par­lia­ment last July before being re-elected for a sec­ond man­date as the E.U. chief, von der Leyen said that farm­ers ​“should not be forced” to sell their ​“good food” below pro­duc­tion costs.

“We must strengthen the posi­tion of farm­ers in the food chain; they need access to more cap­i­tal,” she said.

In her mis­sion let­ter to Hansen after his des­ig­na­tion as the new agri­cul­ture com­mis­sioner, von der Leyen also tasked him with prepar­ing a ​‘vision for agri­cul­ture and food’ in his first 100 days in office, focused on ensur­ing the long-term com­pet­i­tive­ness and sus­tain­abil­ity of the bloc’s farm­ing and food sec­tor.

The new plan will also con­sider the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Strategic Dialogue of E.U. Agriculture and Food report, com­piled by the com­mis­sion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with 29 stake­hold­ers. The report calls for a shift away from hectare-based pay­ments towards more tar­geted pay­ments to farm­ers and more sup­port for small farm­ers.

“You will also ensure that our future Common Agricultural Policy is fit-for-pur­pose to pro­vide tar­geted sup­port to farm­ers who need it most, notably small-scale farm­ers,” von der Leyen wrote in her let­ter. ​“In all your work, you will ensure that farm­ers have a fair and suf­fi­cient income.”

According to stan­dard prac­tice, all the new com­mis­sioner-des­ig­nates will undergo sev­eral par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee hear­ings to receive final approval from the European Parliament. The par­lia­ment then votes on the suit­abil­ity of the new com­mis­sion as a whole.

The five-year term in office of von der Leyen’s new team of com­mis­sion­ers is expected to begin in late November or early December this year.

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