A coalition of oppositions in the National Assembly decided, Tuesday April 9, to postpone the draft “guidance law for agricultural sovereignty and generational renewal in agriculture” before the Constitutional Council, considering the government’s impact study potentially insufficient and disingenuous.
The president of the La France insoumise (LFI) group, Mathilde Panot, wrote Monday to that of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet (Renaissance), to raise the question of “the insincerity of the impact study presented by the government” on its text.
It is based in particular on the reservations issued by the Council of State. In an opinion dated March 21, he considers, for example, that certain measures proposed by the government, for“acceleration of litigation” in the event of an appeal against water storage projects or livestock buildings, “are likely to present risks of constitutionality”. He also explains that the government’s impact study is “very insufficiently motivated” on this subject to the extent that it “limits itself to anticipating an increase in the number of appeals”.
The Conference of Presidents of the Assembly, which met on Tuesday, debated this issue and decided, under article 39 of the Constitutionthat the Constitutional Council should decide on the inclusion of this text on the agenda of the Assembly.
“We won a victory this morning and made Parliament respect”reacted Mme Panot at a press conference at the Palais-Bourbon.
A text welcomed by agricultural unions
According to a parliamentary source, the presidents of the opposition groups validated this referral, unlike those of the presidential camp, in a relative majority situation in the Assembly. It is now up to the President of the Assembly or the Prime Minister to refer the matter to the Constitutional Council, which will then have eight days to decide. If it validates the impact study, the bill could be included on the menu of the Lower House “from May 14”according to a parliamentary source.
“The Constitutional Council will judge, and the government will put forward its arguments, but contrary to what the LFI group asserts, the impact study produced in support of the bill is neither insufficient nor even less disingenuous”, reacted the Ministry of Agriculture in a statement to the press. The oppositions “have just made the choice, in the face of agricultural anger, of obstruction and slowdown when everything would require acceleration and determination”added the ministry.
Reworked due to the farmers’ crisis, the government’s text aims to accelerate the arrival of new generations of farmers relieved of certain environmental constraints. Combining subjects as varied as training, hedges or even the revision of the scale of penalties in the event of damage to nature, it is hailed by the majority agricultural unions for its simplification measures and the promised facilitation of projects. irrigation or livestock.
Conversely, environmental NGOs criticize it for perpetuating the current model, to the detriment of ecosystems.