Brussels, 10/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Agriculture Council to be held in Luxembourg on Monday 16 June will take stock of discussions on the regulation on the distribution of milk and fruit and vegetables in schools. The Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) discussed this dossier on 2 June.
In line with the opinion of the legal services of the Council, the vast majority of countries (Germany, France, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, etc) told the SCA that the legal basis of the text should be Article 43(3) of the treaty (exclusive competence of the Council) rather than Article 43(2) (competence shared with the European Parliament).
A sizeable majority of countries (including Poland, Finland, Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Austria, Romania, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Slovakia and Belgium) recommended extending the list of eligible products, in particular to include dairy products (yoghurt or cheese). A number of countries, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Finland and Austria, argued that the products covered should have nutritional benefits (low fat, no added sugar, etc) in order to be eligible for the programme.
A handful of countries, among them Denmark and Sweden, feel that it is not necessary to extend the range of products covered and therefore wish to stick to fresh milk, as proposed by the Commission. Some countries (such as Finland and Romania) referred to the need to take account of lactose-free milk products. A number of countries (Spain, Portugal, Greece and Slovenia) proposed extending the list of eligible products to olive oil and honey.
The countries proved divided over the selection of the criteria for the allocation of funds. Some countries (including Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Romania and Hungary) would rather work on the basis of historic criteria (existence of such distribution products in schools). Others (Spain, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Bulgaria) are in favour of objective criteria (number of children in schools aged between 6 and 10), or the level of development of the region). Lastly, various countries, such as Austria, Hungary and Belgium, take the view that it should be possible to use the historic criteria during a cross-over a period, before going on to focus on objective criteria. (LC)