Belgian Prime Minister De Croo proposes nitrogen flexibility for farmers

Hello and good news: the EU has record levels of gas in its storage tanksencouraging hopes that the block can survive this winter on less Russian LNG.

Today, the Prime Minister of Belgium tells Laura that farmers need more latitude on climate policy, and our technical team reveals that facial recognition and platforms such as ChatGPT will be the big regulatory battlegrounds of AI later this year.

Stuck in the manure

As the EU appears to be agreeing on ambitious climate and environmental targets, the road looks increasingly muddy.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo is now calling for more flexibility in the implementation of EU objectives for agriculture, writing Laura Dubois.

Context: Farmers are mount the barricades on EU environmental reforms to reduce emissions, limit pollution and promote biodiversity. In the Netherlands and Belgium, protests have been intense above limits for nitrogen compounds contained in fertilizers, animal excrement and urine to reduce soil and water pollution.

De Croo proposed that countries could be allowed to emit more nitrogen from manure and fertilizers if they were more ambitious on other climate policies, such as renewable energy.

“In the nitrogen discussion, some countries could get some flexibility in return for doing more in offshore energy production.“, De Croo told reporters yesterday.

“We have to put both things on the table. If some countries are making a big effort in offshore wind. . .I would be in favor of at least discussing whether some degree of flexibility is possible.

De Croo said he would like to discuss these proposals with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the European Commission.

Nitrogen is a hot topic, especially in Flanders, the heavily agricultural region of northern Belgium. The regional government there nearly collapsed in March over tougher targets.

In the Netherlands, a party that campaigned against nitrogen rules triumph in the provincial elections last month.

In February, the European Commission for follow-up Belgium is not doing enough against nitrate pollution in Wallonia, in the south.

“The nitrogen discussion, it’s not easy to explain,” said De Croo. “A large part of the public is not there yet.”

He said that Belgium and the Netherlands are highly industrialized countries with a “very high density of population and agriculture. . . which is highly technological, very intensive and export-oriented”. This should be maintained, he added.

“If there is no economic agricultural activity, then . . . it really has a big impact on where we live,” said De Croo.

Chart of the day: Refueling

As mentioned above, although Russia cut off most of its pipeline gas supplies to the EU in 2022, the bloc had a record level of gas storage in early April.

Face-to-face with AI

An agreement on new rules on artificial intelligence is high on the to-do list for Spain’s upcoming EU presidency. But tense battles lie ahead over facial recognition and language models such as ChatGPT, to write Ian Johnson And Javier Espinoza.

Background: The European Parliament is finalize position on EU regulations on AI, including the ban on biometric recognition in public spaces. MEPs also want developers of “fundamental systems” such as AI chatbot ChatGPT to carry the box for misuse, rather than small businesses.

Negotiations with member states are expected to begin before July, and Spain is aiming for a final agreement on the AI ​​law by early December, officials told the FT.

The disagreement, however, is pre-programmed.

Member states “cannot allow” a total ban on facial identification because it can be “extremely useful” in the fight against terrorism and other areas, according to a diplomat familiar with the negotiations.

Rules for products such as Open AI’s ChatGPT will be the second most controversial area, as the technology is just emerging and should be regulated without harming the “seed of innovation”, the diplomat said.

Meanwhile, some Member States are increasing the pressure in other areas.

Florian Tursky, Austrian State Secretary for Digitization and Telecommunications, wants a ban on Chinese-built AI systems to be added to the legislation.

“China expects, among other things, that AI-generated content reflects China’s core socialist values ​​or does not generate criticism of Chinese leadership,” Tursky wrote in a letter to the president of China. European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and other European leaders.

That means a ban on Chinese systems is “extremely critical”, Tursky added.

MEPs also called for an international summit to agree on guiding principles for “the development, control and deployment of very powerful artificial intelligence”, in another letter sent on Monday.

What to watch today

1. Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Charles Michel join British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Belfast to commemorate the Good Friday Agreement.

2. German and Israeli Presidents in Warsaw for the 80th anniversary of the warsaw ghetto uprising.

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