Luxembourg, 14/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - In Luxembourg on Monday 14 April, European agriculture ministers were divided over the lessons to be learnt from the European Commission's report on the level of organisation in the fruit and vegetables sector.
Several countries (France, Poland, Hungary and Spain) said that membership of producer organisations (POs) was not attractive enough, due to the complexity of the EU rules. Others spoke out against the low level of support granted to small producers to encourage them to join POs.
Poland, Croatia and Hungary, amongst others, called for financial incentives to be paid to countries where the POs are in shortest supply. Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria called for an increase in the EU budget to encourage producers to join POs. The financial assistance of the EU is limited to 4.1% of the production value of each individual PO. Croatia, for example, called for the value to be doubled to 8.2%. However, a group of countries including the liberal countries, such as Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, opposed any increase of Community resources for these actions.
The United Kingdom, Germany and Finland called for procedures to be simplified. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark stressed that the change in direction of the measures should focus on research, innovation, sustainability and the environment.
Belgium (supported by Slovenia, amongst others) suggested bringing in a system for the exchange of best practice between countries with good POs and those with little in terms of organisation.
France also stressed the need to better include certain aspects of production, particularly fruit and vegetables to be used by the processing industries, and organic fruit and vegetables.
Italy requested specific support for regions with fewer POs, simplification of the rules to improve the existing instruments and the promotion of trans-national cooperation. This country also wants non-PO members to benefit from crisis management measures.
The 2007 reform of the CAP aimed to reinforce the role of organisations of producers of fruit and vegetables by making a broader range of instruments available to them, to allow them to prevent and manage market crises. The most recent reform of the CAP brought in a number of changes: the option for PO associations to establish operational programmes and an extension of the risk management and prevention tools.
The Commission presented this report at the Council of 24 March. On Monday, European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Ciolos said that between 2007 and 2010, the percentage of fruit and vegetable producers who are members of a PO rose by three percentage points. “However, it remains low overall, with 16.5% of producers in POs in Europe”, he admitted. He lamented the persistence of a situation in which there is little or no degree of organisation in many countries and regions of the Union. A considerable proportion of producers which are not affiliated to a PO, and which do not therefore benefit from service or paid, are operating on a small or modest scale. These producers also have the least negotiating power in the supply chain and are the most exposed to risks related to the globalisation of the markets and climate change. The Commission stressed that very low levels of use are being made of the crisis prevention and management instruments.
The Council will return to this dossier at a later date. At this stage, there are no plans for the member states to adopt conclusions on their assessment of the Commission's report. (LC)