Brussels, 19/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption, in Strasbourg on Thursday 19 January, of a common resolution (EPP, S&D, ALDE, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL) on “imbalances on the food supply chain”, Parliament invites the Commission to put forward “robust EU legislation to guarantee fair and transparent relationships between producers, suppliers and distributors of food products”.
The EP calls on national and European competition authorities and other regulatory authorities involved in production and commerce to take action against abusive buyer practices on the part of dominant wholesalers and retailers which systematically put farmers in an extremely unequal bargaining position. MEPs recommend the establishment of a framework to effectively control these practices (abusive), first by launching a full-sector inquiry, through administrative or judicial means, and then by introducing a system of evaluation and monitoring operated by the member states and coordinated by the Commission, with dissuasive sanctions applied effectively and in good time.
Furthermore, Parliament calls for: - the introduction of better means to ensure that payment deadlines are complied with, and for new instruments to be put in place to minimise and to harmonise at European level the length of time between delivery and the moment at which payment is actually received by suppliers; - improvements to the European Price Monitoring Tool; - clarification of application of competition rules in agriculture, with the aim of “providing farmers and their inter-branch organisations with tools that will make it possible to improve their negotiating position”; - an assessment of and changes to existing EU competition law, with a view to ensuring that greater account is taken of the harmful effects of vertical concentration on the entire food supply chain; - and the creation of an independent Food Trading Ombudsman to liaise with the relevant trade and competition authorities and with national food trading Ombudsmen in each member state, in order to coordinate and share information. (LC/transl.jl)