External events

Date: Monday12June 2023 Time: 09:30 – 17:30 Location: Brussels and online The Directorate-General for Competition and the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development are organising a conference titled “Sustainability Guidelines: Enhancing cooperation for a greener agri-food supply chain” that will accompany the Guidelines’ adoption process. The conference follows a public consultation, which closed in April 2023. The main purpose of this conference is to discuss key elements of the Guidelines with interested parties at all levels. These parties could be active in the agri-food supply chain, but could also be, for example, lawyers, law enforcers, academics, or citizens. In December 2021, in the context of the 2023-2027 EU common agricultural policy reform, the European Parliament and Council of the European Union agreed on a new sustainability exclusion from competition rules for agriculture. The exclusion was introduced by an amendment to the Common Market Organisation Regulation (Regulation (EU) 1308/2013) and laid down in its Article 210a.  The exclusion forms part of the overall ambition to ensure a more sustainable EU agri-food supply chain. The Commission is currently preparing guidelines on the practical implementation of the new exclusion to help interested parties use the exclusion. The programme for the conference will be communicated soon and made available on this page. The conference will take place in Brussels, but there is also a possibility to follow it online (registration is compulsory in both cases).

The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) is a conservation organization based in the United States, supporting a "global community of restoration professionals that includes researchers, practitioners, decision-makers, and community leaders".The organization was founded in 1988. The mission of the organization is to: "advance the science, practice and policy of ecological restoration to sustain biodiversity, improve resilience in a changing climate, and re-establish an ecologically healthy relationship between nature and culture. The 10th World Conference on Ecological Restoration will focus on the important, and often neglected connection between culture and nature, including the role of restoration in enhancing and rebuilding that connection. The conference theme encourages us to consider our own relationship with nature and the interweaving of human and ecological well being, as well as to reflect on and pay respect to the deep interconnectedness and reciprocity between nature and Indigenous and traditional communities around the world. While the theme of the conference will elevate the value of traditional and local ecological knowledge and practice, SER2023 welcomes presentations and information on all aspects of restoration, especially as outlined in the conference sub-themes.