Brussels, 18/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Monday 17 February, the agriculture ministers of the countries of the EU proved fairly critical of the final elements of the proposal on tightening up promotion measures in favour of EU agricultural products.
Most of the countries called for national cofunding for product promotion programmes to be kept in place, and for the national authorities to hang onto their role in the procedure of selecting the programmes.
Single market/third countries. Most of the countries want to keep promotional activities within the single market (and therefore not just in third countries). A number of delegations, among them Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom (at least 75% of funds earmarked for programmes in third countries) and Sweden stated that they feel that the priority should be given to promotion in third countries.
No more national co-funding? In its proposal, the Commission suggests getting rid of co-funding (which is just one possibility at the moment and by no means used across the board). The Commission notes that, on average, the national co-funding rate is just 20% and that 12% of the programmes (in terms of numbers) do not receive any co-funding from the countries. This creates “competition distortions for the proposing organisations”, says Dacian Ciolos, European Commissioner for Agriculture. It is certainly true that some countries co-fund and others do not. By getting rid of this co-funding, the Commission is proposing to create fair conditions for all beneficiaries. Under the old system, public co-funding could be up to 80%, which on occasion led to low levels of liability for the proposals and, in some cases, to the cancellation of programmes. The end of co-funding by the countries of the EU will be compensated (under the proposal) by: - an increase in the participation rate of the EU (which rises to 60% for multi-country programmes and programmes targeting third countries); - the option to refer to the origin and names of brands.
However, at the policy debate at Monday's Agriculture Council, a majority of countries backed keeping national co-funding. These include: Italy (getting rid of co-funding will cause additional costs for producers, which is not particularly consistent), Luxembourg (keep them at a rate of at least 30%), Croatia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Hungary (without it, there is a risk of excluding SMEs), Finland, Belgium (national co-funding should be possible, under certain conditions, notably a 10% increase in co-funding out of the EU budget) and Portugal. Austria is open over the issue, Germany needs time to think and France declined to take position on the subject.
A number of countries called for an increase in Community co-funding, among them Spain and Cyprus. Only the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom supported an end to national co-funding for these actions.
Proposed increase of budget to €200 million. France welcomed the proposed budget increase (from €61.5 million in 2013 to 200 million euros in 2020), whilst the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom struggled to swallow this increase in funding. Luxembourg would have preferred a less sharp increase because, like Germany, it has concerns over the application of financial discipline (drop in direct aid) in order to be able to fund this budget increase for product promotion. Denmark can agree to an increase in the budget, as long as the added value in terms of market share and job creation is vouchsafed.
Dacian Ciolos said that “this proposal by no means calls into question the multi-annual financial framework 2014/2020. What is proposed for the promotion policy will not call for recourse to financial discipline”. He added that the promotion activities will focus on markets which “add value” (increase the EU's market share on the international market).
Role of the countries. Most of the countries took the view that the member states must be guaranteed involvement in the process of selecting the programmes. The proposal provides for the Commission to select the programmes on its own. The Commission is open to the idea of providing the countries with more information about this selection for simple programmes, which the countries will then manage.
Reactive system. Spain and France called for promotion activities in the event of crisis, in order to restore consumer confidence. “That is provided for by the proposal”, the commissioner pointed out.
Products. Several countries called for an extension of the list of products covered by the promotion activities, such as processed products (Spain, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, United Kingdom, Portugal, et al), manufactured products (Cyprus), wine (Spain) and products from fishing and fish farming (Spain). Lastly, a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Finland and Belgium, stressed the need to keep in place national promotion programmes for certain products. (LC/transl.fl)