Organisers of a European Citizens’ Initiative that seeks to halt sales of public water utilities say they have gathered one million signatures from across Europe, becoming the first such group to do so since the grass-roots efforts were launched last spring.

After 24 hours of negotiations, EU leaders have struck on Friday 8 February a deal on the EU budget for 2014-20120, which includes among others 11% (by €3.3bn) cut in development aid, and a decrease with 17.5% (by €58.8bn) in direct payments from the EU's agriculture spending, as compared to initial Commission proposals.

The European Union (EU) has given a total grant of 7.6 million Euros (KR55 million) to four Government institutions and eight non-governmental organisations (NGOs), under the 'Non State Actors and Local Authorities in Development' programme, which aims at encouraging non-state actors and local authorities to get more involved in development issues.

On the eve of the EU summit in Brussels (7-8 February) on the Union's 2014-2020 budget, some 400 representatives of European farm groups and cooperatives agreed a five-point declaration, warning EU leaders that decreasing the funding for the Common Agricultural Policy risks killing jobs and undermining food security.

“Agroforestry is the future of agriculture in the drylands and sub-humid regions”, Dr Chris Reij of the World Resource Institute said in the European Parliament on Tuesday  29 January.

The relatively small sum for EU development aid to finance family planning services in poor nations has sparked an outgoing debate over how European aid money is spent.

The UK Department for International Development launched on 29 January the Trade and Global Value Chains (TGVC) initiative which will work with some of the UK's biggest high street names to improve working conditions and job opportunities in some of the world's poorest countries. The initiative will be piloted in Bangladesh, South Africa and Kenya.

Council of the EU:
- 4 February: Meeting of General Affairs Council (GAC)
- 5-6 February: COREPER I
- 5 February: COREPER II
- 7-8 February: European Council

European Parliament:
- 4-7 February: European Parliament Plenary
- 4-7 February: European Parliament committee meetings

ACP Group:
- 4 February: S/C on Sustainable Development
- 5 February: 5th Steering Committee Meeting of the ACP Fish2 Programme
- 8 February: S/C on Political, Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs

You can also read our newspaper “CTA Brussels Daily” (fed by our Twitter account), follow our new Facebook group CTABrussels and our Twitter account CTABrussels to receive up-to-date information on EU-ACP events.

The ACP Group is satisfied with the vote in the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on 23 January 2013 last week, which supports the extension of the current sugar quota provisions until 30 September 2020.

The World Economic Forum's report, ‘Achieving the New Vision for Agriculture: New Models for Action’ focuses and acknowledges the importance of around 500 million smallholders worldwide, who account for 97% of total global agricultural holdings, and produce food for almost 70% of the world's population.