Brussels, 14/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - Maintaining certain exemptions in the organic production sector is essential if reduction in production is to be avoided and farmers not to turn their backs on this sector, in the view of a majority of ministers responsible for agriculture on Monday 14 July.
The Agriculture Council debated the proposed revision of the legal framework applicable to organic farming in Europe. The proposal recognised that current EU policy in organic farming presents a number of problems (complex legislation, shortcomings in the monitoring system and in the trade regime etc). The Italian Presidency would like to structure the debate at the Council around the following themes:
Rules on organic production. The Commission is proposing to enhance and harmonise production rules through the scrapping of current exemptions. Many countries, however, called for a case-by-case approach and for certain exemptions to be maintained: - keeping traditional and therefore non-organic seeds (most countries called for maintaining this derogation); - maintaining the possibility of mixed farming, that is, organic and non-organic (France, United Kingdom, Sweden, Hungary, Finland, Spain, Bulgaria, Croatia and others); - keeping the possibility of using non-organic animals (Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Greece, inter alia). Germany also opposed the scrapping of the majority of exemptions. Austria was particularly vexed about the issue and described the proposal as disgraceful.
Control systems. The Commission proposed scrapping the current obligation on annual operator compliance verification (Belgium, Romania, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Slovenia are particularly against ending annual controls) and replacing it with a risk-based approach. Several countries, such as Germany and Greece, are opposed to including organic control rules in the monitoring regulation (instead of maintaining rules in the regulation on organic farming). Most countries supported the group certification plan for small producers.
Delegated and implementing acts. The Commission has provided for the use of delegated acts for amending particular rules on organic production and pointed out that this would make legislation easier to use. Almost all the member states opposed the use of delegated acts (acts included in the basic act or authorisation acts). (LC)