In a context of increasingly structural geopolitical tensions—from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to conflicts in the Middle East—the European Union is called upon to strengthen its trade defense instruments to protect strategic productive sectors. In this framework, safeguard measures represent essential tools to ensure fairness and sustainability in global trade.
Eat Europe and Farm Europe welcome and support the initiative proposed in Council by Italy and supported by several EU Countries – aimed at making the activation of safeguard clauses more effective within the revision of the GSP Regulation. In view of the plenary vote on the trilogue agreement at the end of 2025, it is important that EU agriculture ministers raise the alarm. As we have already pointed out, despite the positive element of automaticity—crucial to ensuring timely responses to market disruptions—without an adjustment of activation thresholds, such mechanisms risk failing to deliver the desired effects.
For this reason, as Eat Europe and Farm Europe we have actively worked – together with farmers representatives of other producing Countries, starting from Spain – on proposing a reduction of the activation threshold to 20%, in order to make the clause more aligned with market realities and more effective in protecting European producers.
At the same time, the current economic situation shows that rice is not the only sector in need of stronger protection tools. Several European agricultural sectors are currently facing increasing difficulties.
From this perspective, a proposal has also been put forward to extend the application of automatic safeguard clauses to other sensitive products. Among these, the sugar sector represents a clear example: it is going through a particularly critical phase due to the practice of inward processing, compounded by the opening of new zero-duty quotas from third countries, including those in the Mercosur area and Australia.
This example clearly demonstrates how agricultural, trade, energy, and industrial policies are now deeply interconnected. For this reason, it is increasingly necessary to adopt a cross-cutting approach to European policies. We support the action of the Italian government aimed at identifying other agricultural and agri-industrial products that, if not adequately monitored, could destabilize European production and sectors. This is not about protecting a single product, but about changing the working method: anticipating risks, understanding policy interactions, and coherently protecting the Union’s strategic interests.
It is now essential that the request put forward at the AGRIFISH Council be heard not only by agriculture ministers, but also by all EU ministers involved in shaping and implementing European trade agreements. Decisions on international trade have direct effects on the economic sustainability of agricultural supply chains and on the resilience of the European production system. The negotiations on the revision of the GSP Regulation are already at an advanced stage, and the ball now passes to the European Parliament, which has a real opportunity to introduce amendments and correct the imbalances that still exist and that we have repeatedly highlighted before the final adoption of the text.
Europe must not close itself off, but it must stop being naïve. Producing to increase self-sufficiency is not isolationism; it is resilience. It means recognizing that the European agricultural system is a shared security asset. Trade is essential, but it must serve to complement European production, not replace it with raw materials produced in contexts that do not respect our social and environmental model.
If we lose the capacity to produce in Europe, we also lose our political freedom. In the current geopolitical context—unstable and constantly evolving—European food sovereignty can no longer be called into question.
O artigo foi publicado originalmente em Farm Europe.
