Since he was nominated Commissioner for Agriculture, Christophe Hansen has made numerous statements on the need for reciprocity of standards in the agricultural sector and in favour of the introduction of mirror measures (1). In an initial version of the Vision for Agricultureleaked to the press on February 13, the Commissioner confirmed his favourable approach to the adoption of mirror measures, committing himself to :

• ensure that the most dangerous pesticides banned in the EU for health and environmental reasons cannot be imported as residues.
• fulfil its commitment to end the production of pesticides banned in the EU for export.
• include mirror measures in the revision of animal welfare legislation.

However, the documentpublished today gives up the commitment to concretely and effectively tackle the issue of reciprocity of standards, particularly regarding imports of products containing pesticide residues and exports of pesticides banned in the EU. DG Trade has successfully imposed its views on the Commissioner for Agriculture, claiming that such mirror measures are incompatible with WTO law and warning of the risk of offending third countries.

In the final version of the vision, the Commissioner only commits to carrying out an impact assessment in 2025 that "will consider the impacts on the EU’s competitive position and the international implications and, if appropriate, propose amendments to the applicable legal framework" while undertaking to “assess the issue” of exports of banned pesticides. However, such a task was already carried out in 2022, and the Commission’s report concluded that mirror measures were legally feasible on a case-by-case basis.

DG Trade has thus chosen to ignore the strong demands of farmers, consumers, and civil society organisations committed to public health and environmental protection and to take a three-year step backwards. Making the introduction of mirror measures conditional on the absence of any impact on the export sector is a way of burying the issue, even though the export sector will, in any case, be targeted by the trade retaliation measures already in the pipeline.

For France, which has made mirror measures a priority for many years at the European level, this last-minute backtracking is a real blow.

Notes
(1) See, for example, his hearing as Commissioner-designate on November 4, 2024. Interview with a German mediaon January 15, 2025; discussion on January 23, 2025 at a meeting of the Irish Farmers’ Association; press conference on January 27, 2025, Christophe Hansen stated that he wanted to go further on maximum residue limits for pesticides.