Brussels, 17/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - The countries of the EU were divided, on Monday 16 January, over a point in the quality package, the proposals on which date from last year.
Twenty member states had agreed with the compromise proposal on quality programmes. Since then, however, the European Parliament has put down an amendment which introduces management of supply for protected designation of origin (PDO) and protected geographical indication (PGI) products. The aim of the amendment is to allow producer organisations to have some control over the scale of production. Most countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, are against this amendment, while others, such as France, Spain and Italy, are pushing for it. Member states will discuss this issue once again at the meeting of the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) on 6 February. (LC/transl.rt)