Brussels, 20/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 19 July, the European agriculture ministers called for the promotion programmes boasting the merits of consuming European agricultural products to be improved. The discussion will continue at the informal Agriculture Council (11-13 September in Wroc³aw, Poland). The Commission's Green Paper on the promotion of the products generally went down well with the Council.
Italy, Spain, Romania and Greece stressed the need for an adequate Community budget for the promotion programmes. The United Kingdom said that the added value of the Union's financial participation in these actions should be carefully assessed. Sweden expressed doubts on the need to spend European money on campaigns of this kind.
Several countries (Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Sweden) recommended that awareness and promotion campaigns be more flexible and more reactive. France said that in the event of a crisis (like the E.coli crisis), actions of this kind are vital and should be the subject of a framework contract between the Commission and an operator to speed up procedures. Bulgaria pleaded in favour of promotion actions in favour of EU wines in third countries. Malta, Hungary and Romania called for support to direct sales and local markets. France said that the country of origin of the product should be mentioned in the campaigns carried out in third countries. Germany raised the possibility of promoting certain brands. Cioloº called for the subject of “promoting origin and brands to be the subject of a no holds barred debate”. (L.C./transl.fl)