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On 21 April 2021 the European Commission adopted an ambitious ‘Sustainable finance package’ to re-direct investments towards more sustainable activities across the EU.

Agriculture, so far, will not be part of the first set of economic activities that will be covered under the the EU Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act resulting out of the Taxonomy Regulation applicable since July 2020.

The Delegated Act defines those “technical screening criteria” for economic sectors that qualify as “sustainable activities”. In other words, these activities are meant to make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation contributing to achieve EU’s Green Deal targets.

Reacting to this, COPA-COGECA, representing 22 million farmers and cooperatives across Europe, released the following statement insisting on the need to be first aligned with the ongoing negotiations of the CAP: “we have called for a swift inclusion of agriculture in the taxonomy delegated act after the adoption of the CAP providing that we will get an equivalence with the CAP and the proposed criteria. Considering the importance of the agriculture sector in climate change mitigation and the relatively limited time that was devoted for consultation with relevant stakeholders in this first phase of negotiations, it was a relevant move for the Commission to decide to take the time later to deal with this issue more precisely based on a comprehensive dialogue”.

The sectors that have been already included in this first EU Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act notably include forestry, energy (including bioenergy), transport, building and manufacturing.

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