This Practice Note tracks key past developments in EU agriculture and food regulation. It provides details of key events and relevant commentary relating to finalised legislation and case law and other key developments, including published guidance and EU-level strategies and action plans. EU food policy aims to ensure a high level of food safety and animal and plant health within the EU. Agricultural policy also ensures food safety, as well as the availability of affordable food to EU citizens, a fair standard of living for farmers and the sustainable management of natural resources, through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). For further information on EU food law and the CAP, see Practice Notes: Introduction to EU food law and The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This tracker covers developments from 2024 onwards. For pre-2024 developments, see Practice Note: Agriculture/Food—EU Regulatory tracker [Archived]. This tracker is divided into the following sections: • Legislation published in the Official Journal • Key non-legislative developments • Key judgments and opinions of the Court of Justice This tracker does not

The EU and Australia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a bilateral partnership to work together on sustainable critical and strategic minerals. The aim of the partnership is the diversification of the EU’s supplies of materials necessary for green and digital transitions while also playing an instrumental part in the development of Australia’s domestic critical minerals sector. The partnership covers the entire critical and strategic minerals value chain which consists of  exploration, extraction, processing, refining, recycling, and processing of extractive waste. A roadmap with concrete actions will now be jointly developed to put the Strategic Partnership into practice over the next six months.

The European Commission has announced that the EU and China have launched discussions on the Cross-Border Data Flow Communication Mechanism. This mechanism, stemming from the 2023 EU-China dialogues, aims to facilitate non-personal data transfers for European businesses and ensure compliance with Chinese data laws. During the first discussions under the mechanism, the EU shared its objective of addressing concerns raised by EU businesses in China in relation to cross-border flows of non-personal data. Further technical and expert-level discussions are planned, with a political review expected at the next appropriate occasion.

A key objective of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the EU GDPR) is to achieve a level of consistency in relation to how data protection is implemented and enforced across the EU and EEA. Under the EU GDPR, each Member State can specify one or more independent public authorities to be responsible for monitoring the application of the EU GDPR, ie a ‘supervisory authority’. This Practice Note: • introduces the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) • introduces the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) • provides a consolidated list of supervisory authorities in the EU and EEA For guidance on sanctions and enforcement under the EU GDPR, see Practice Note: EU GDPR—sanctions and enforcement. The EDPB The EDPB is at the centre of the EU GDPR regime and its guidance and opinions are highly influential. It consists of the head of each of the EU national supervisory authorities, and the EDPS. The EDPB replaced the Article 29 Working Party (Working Party) which was established under Directive 95/46/EC (Data Protection

This tracker summarises all announcements made by EU and EEA competition authorities of dawn raids that have been carried out into alleged breaches of competition law since 2018. 2026 dawn raids Competition authority Sector; parties Issues Date of press release (/ith link) Date of dawn raid Office for the Protection of Economic Competition (Czech Republic) Information technology and related services• Unknown Restrictive agreements • 28/08/2026 • Unknown Consiliul Concurenţei (Romania) Healthcare and medical equipment • Philips România • 10 distributors (listed here) Restrictive agreements • 19/08/2026 • Unknown Autoriteit Consument en Markt (The Netherlands) Suppliers to institutions in the public sector• Unknown Restrictive agreements—allocating customers • 07/07/2026 • Unknown CNMC (Spain) Mortgage brokerage• Unknown Restrictive agreements • 01/07/2026 • 23/06/2026–24/06/2026 Anti-monopoly Office (Slovakia) Advertising and marketing• Unknown Restrictive agreements • 23/06/2026 • 16/06/2026–19/06/2026 Competition Protection Office (Slovenia) Household appliances• Candy Hoover Restrictive agreements—RPM • 19/06/2026 • 16/06/2026 CNMC (Spain) Hospital serum and parenteral nutrition product supply• Unknown Restrictive agreements—bid rigging • 15/06/2026 • 09/06/2026–12/06/2026 Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (Poland) Numerous sectors• Toyota Boshoku Poland• Toyota Boshoku Europe• Hoerbiger Automotive• Gerresheimer Bolesławiec• Bader Polska Restrictive agreements—‘no poach’ agreements • 08/06/2026 • Unknown Office of Competition

The European Union and Euratom will leave the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), following the European Parliament’s approval during its last plenary session in April 2024, and the decisions adopted on 30 May 2024. The ECT is a multilateral agreement which came into force in 1998 and contains provisions on investment protection and trade in the energy sector. A process of modernisation has been initiated in 2018, due to the treaty's lack of alignment with the Paris agreement and the EU ambitions regarding the energy transition. Member States who wish to remain contracting parties after the withdrawal can vote during the upcoming Energy Charter Conference, which is expected to take place by the end of 2024, by approving or not opposing the adoption of a modernised agreement.

The EU and Japan have both announced their intention to enhance cooperation between the EU AI Office and Japan's AI Safety Institute following their second Digital Partnership Council. They confirmed their continuing support of the G7 Hiroshima AI Process and Code of Conduct and the EU encouraged Japanese companies to take part in the AI Pact to promote voluntary early compliance with key measures under the EU AI Act. The parties also signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on digital identities and trust services, agreed to create an expert team to develop a research programme to implement the Memorandum of Cooperation on Semiconductors, agreed to continue their joint work on high performance computing and explore establishing a regular information sharing channel on online platforms regulations. Additionally, both sides confirmed the importance of deploying secure and resilient submarine cable infrastructures. The next Digital Partnership Council will take place in Tokyo, Japan in 2025.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has announced a new working arrangement between itself and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) of the Republic of Korea to share confidential information on medicinal products that came into effect on 25 April 2024. The exchange of non-public information (but not personal data or personal information) is to aid the parties’ regulatory and scientific processes, and facilitate quick exchanges of information when issues such as medicine shortages and concerns over quality or safety arise. The arrangement has no end date and does not require a renewal.

The EU merger control regime, set out in the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR), is based on the ‘one-stop shop’ principle for the control of concentrations within the EEA. This confers on the European Commission (the Commission) exclusive jurisdiction to review transactions which constitute a concentration (within the meaning of Article 3 of the EUMR and which meet the turnover thresholds set out in Article 1(2) or (3) of the EUMR (and therefore have an EU dimension). In consequence, Member States are precluded by virtue of Article 21(3) of the EUMR from applying their national competition laws to such concentrations with an EU dimension. The EUMR aims to promote the efficient review of certain large scale transactions with a pan-European dimension within one reviewing authority (ie, the Commission), rather than subjecting such transactions to potentially duplicative reviews by multiple national competition authorities across the EU. The EUMR contains mechanisms for referral between the Commission and Member States to seek to ensure that the best-placed authority reviews the transaction. Referrals can take place both pre- and post-notification. For

The European Union and Mercosur have signed a Partnership Agreement (EMPA) and an Interim Trade Agreement (iTA). The agreements are intended to strengthen economic, diplomatic and geopolitical relations, delivering substantial new commercial opportunities for EU companies and supporting EU jobs while creating one of the world’s largest trade zones, covering around 700 million consumers. The agreement represents a historic milestone in relations between the two regions and is expected to drive a 39% increase in annual EU exports to Mercosur, valued at approximately €49 billion.

Ireland-Commercial analysis: This article, was written by Maeve Moran, head of Food and Agri, and Orla Clayton, of counsel at Arthur Cox LLP.

ARCHIVED: This document is archived and no longer maintained. See Checklists: UK securitisation regime—timeline and EU Securitisation Regulation—timeline for more recent updates. In September 2015, the European Commission published the Action Plan for Capital Markets Union (the Plan). The Plan is intended to unify the capital markets across Europe’s Member States, promote investment and boost growth in the EU. The Plan identified five main steps that need to be followed in order to achieve a Capital Markets Union, one of which is to enhance banks’ capabilities to lend, which includes a focus on revitalising simple, transparent and standardised (STS) European securitisation. On 28 December 2017, Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 (the EU Securitisation Regulation) and the related Securitisation Prudential Regulation (EU) 2017/2401 (which amends the Capital Requirements Regulation (EU) 575/2013) were published in the Official Journal of the EU (OJ). The regulations entered into force on 17 January 2018 and became directly applicable across the EU from 1 January 2019, applying to securitisation transactions where the securities are entered into on or after that date, as well as any securitisation