| EU elections: What’s in it for European farmers? Following a wave of farmers’ protests across the bloc, and with the European Parliament elections in June fast approaching, EU politicians are seizing on the discontent in the agricultural sector for electoral gains. See our story on the main pledges made by the Parliament’s political families here. A coalition of 15 EU countries led by Germany are set to demand an increase of “de minimis” state aid for the agricultural sector during next Monday’s Agriculture and Fisheries Council (AGRIFISH), diplomatic sources told Euractiv. The country representatives will advocate for increasing the “de minimis” ceiling, which currently stands at €20,000 per farm, to €50,000. This is the only type of public national subsidy that does not need approval from the European Commission, since the small-scale envelopes are not considered distorting markets. The European Parliament backs temporary trade benefits for Ukraine, paving the way for talks on a long-term deal. After months of painstaking negotiations, on Tuesday (23 April) the plenary gave its final approval to extend the liberalisation of imports from Kyiv until June 2025, including measures to protect EU-sensitive agricultural sectors and the Commission’s pledge to start talks with Ukraine soon to find a permanent solution. Days after, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky was detained for a corruption scandal. Prosecutors announced on Friday (26 April) that Solsky was a formal suspect in a corruption inquiry, accused of illegally seizing land when he was the head of a major farming company and a member of parliament. Earlier this week, he offered his resignation. Meanwhile, German conservatives push for a national ban on Russian agricultural imports. The conservative CDU/CSU group in the German Bundestag is pushing for a complete ban on all agriculture and food imports from Russia and Belarus as a way of weakening Russia’s war effort. On Wednesday (24 April), the European Parliament voted to ease seed marketing rules for conservation efforts. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted to free up the exchange of seeds and other types of plant reproductive material (PRM) between farmers and for conservation purposes from new bureaucratic requirements. On the same day, MEPs backed the creation of an emergency team to combat the entry of pests. MEPs voted in favour of amending the bloc’s Plant Health Regulation and setting up an EU emergency team that will help the EU and neighbouring countries prevent and contain the arrival of crop-damaging pests to the bloc. In the last plenary of the legislative term, the Parliament closed the procedure on NGTs. MEPs on Thursday (25 April) validated their position on regulating gene-edited plants obtained by new genomic techniques (NGTs). It is customary, but not mandatory, that the next Parliament assumes Thursday’s vote as a starting point, waiting for EU countries to reach a common position and negotiations to begin. French beet growers urge Paris to authorise pesticide already used in other EU countries. The national beet industry is urging the French government to give the green light on the use of acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide allowed in the EU but banned in the country, to put an end to the distortion in competition among member states. [Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Rajnish Singh] | 
