Brussels, 20/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 24 March, the Agriculture Council will discuss an initial compromise text on the dossier on the promotion of EU agricultural products. Talks at expert level made progress on Monday 17 March. The European Parliament committee on agriculture has taken position on the dossier, proposing an increase in the rate of Community co-funding.
As regards promotion on the single market, a large majority of countries (Italy, Romania, Austria, Germany, Portugal, France, the Czech Republic, Spain, Poland, Croatia, et al) within the SCA (Special Committee on Agriculture) backed promoting agricultural products to third countries and the single market, also covering national quality programmes. The agriculture committee of the EP also takes this line. On the other hand, a number of delegations (which include the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark) agree with the Commission that promotion should focus solely on third countries.
The Commission has proposed getting rid of national co-funding in the programmes. In order to take on board the opposition of a majority of countries within the Council, the Greek Presidency has proposed that the member states' participation continue in the form of national co-funding, which was welcomed by many countries (Germany, Finland, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Poland, Ireland and Croatia). These countries explained the importance of this funding for SMEs with limited resources. A handful of countries (among them Italy, France, Romania, Hungary and Portugal) called for the EP's proposal in favour of increasing the EU's participation in co-funding to be taken on board. The agriculture committee of the EP favours a rate for co-funding out of the EU budget of at least 75% for all promotion campaigns and at least 85% in the event of crisis (the Commission proposed 50% for single programmes and 60% for multiple programmes). In the opposite corner, Denmark, Sweden and a few others opposed national co-funding, on the grounds that this would bring back discrimination. A few countries opposed to national co-funding recognise the interest of having a higher co-funding rate on the side of the EU (comments were made by Spain, the UK and the Netherlands, amongst others).
As regards the involvement of the countries in selecting the programmes, the Commission pointed out that the provisions of the general financial regulation do not allow the member states to be involved in the selection process. Most of the countries (Spain, the Scandinavian countries, Romania, Italy, the United Kingdom, etc.) supported the Presidency's proposal, whereby the Commission would inform the countries (without their involvement in the pre-selection process). A few countries in favour of this proposal, such as France and Ireland, called for the Commission to present more detailed information to the countries. Several countries (including Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia) which oppose the Presidency's proposal argued in favour of the status quo. Certain countries (Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic), which are generally in favour of the status quo, said that they could accept the Presidency's proposal, depending on the information to be provided by the Commission. As a number of countries called for, the agriculture committee added to the list of eligible products (quality wines, fishing and fish-farming products). The SCA could approve the mandate for the Presidency to negotiate this dossier with the EP in its meeting on the evening of Monday 24 March (with the first trialogue to take place the following week). (LC)