Paula Andres

Mar 20, 2025 | politico.eu | Bartosz Brzezinski |Paula Andres

BRUSSELS — The world’s largest food aid organization is being financially gutted at a time when it’s needed most. The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), which helps feed more than 100 million people worldwide, is scrambling to plug a multi-billion-dollar funding gap after its historically largest donor — the United States — froze foreign aid and slashed humanitarian budgets. Other Western donor countries are not stepping in to fill the void.

Jan 15, 2025 | politico.eu | Paula Andres

German livestock farmers fear they could suffer crippling costs after the country’s first case of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in nearly four decades was detected in a farm near Berlin last Friday. The disease has the potential to devastate animal agriculture. An outbreak in the United Kingdom in 2001 caused an agricultural and tourism crisis costing more than €15 billion. Authorities slaughtered more than 6 million animals in efforts to eradicate the disease.

Dec 3, 2024 | politico.eu | Paula Andres

BRUSSELS — It’s Christophe Hansen’s first working day in his new job, and he is sitting nervously by his temporary desk in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture with some well-prepared talking points. The new European Union agriculture and food chief — a farmer’s son who hails from Luxembourg, and from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party — tells POLITICO he has a clear goal: to help farmers have a better life.

Nov 6, 2024 | politico.eu | Rory O’Neill |Paula Andres

BRUSSELS — In some ways, it exceeded everyone's expectations. Olivér Várhelyi’s commissioner hearing was always going to be tough, but it turns out Viktor Orbán’s man in Brussels knew more about Europe’s health files than his CV suggested. He had done his homework. But while he mostly handled himself well in a room full of all-too-willing interlocutors, he failed to convince MEPs when pressed — again and again — on his support for abortion rights.

Nov 6, 2024 | politico.eu | Claudia Chiappa |Max Griera |Mari Eccles |Paula Andres

Olivér Várhelyi, the Hungarian commissioner-designate for health and animal welfare, failed to win an immediate stamp of approval from members of the European Parliament on Wednesday evening. Coordinators for the responsible committees decided instead to ask him a second round of written questions following a three-and-a-half hour grilling, during which Várhelyi fended off questions on women's rights, competitiveness, animal welfare and his links to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.