Brussels, 10/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - On 17 February, the Agriculture Council will debate the proposal to step up the policy for the promotion of European agricultural and agri-food products. The Greek Presidency has made this dossier a priority and hopes to lead the institutions to a political agreement in April, before the end of the term of office of the European Parliament.
At the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) of Monday 3 February, most of the countries took a positive view of the proposals presented, but a number of delegations (Spain, Austria, Sweden and Cyprus) noted that the Presidency's timetable is very tight. The speed of the procedure must not harm the quality of the discussion on the subject, said several countries (Italy, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Belgium, Luxembourg, and others).
Some countries (among them Ireland, Finland, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia and Luxembourg) called for the concept of “quality” on which the text is based not to be limited to PGI (protected geographical indications) and PDO (protected denominations of origin), but to be extended to take account of certain national quality programmes.
A group of countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian countries and the Czech Republic, expressed concern at the proposed increase (to €200 million) of the EU budget earmarked for promotion measures. Some delegations (Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia and others) stressed that the member states should be more involved in the programming procedure. Several (such as Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Ireland and Estonia) called for the co-funding of actions to be brought back. Lastly, a handful of countries, among them France and Germany, argued in favour of re-establishing a better balance in the text between delegated acts (decided upon by the Commission) and the provisions introduced by the basic act. (LC/transl.fl)