Brussels, 05/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - At the meeting of the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) on Monday 3 November, the compromise text of the Presidency on the 'organic farming' regulation went down reasonably well with the EU countries, although there is still a lot of work to be done.
Following discussions at the Council working group and at the Agriculture Council of 14 July of this year (EUROPE 11121), the Italian Presidency prepared an initial draft compromise on the regulation on organic farming produce (this draft covers only articles 1 to 19).
The countries of the Visegrad group (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary), plus Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia, prepared a joint statement to the effect that the proposal fails to take account of many of their priorities.
As regards the structure of the proposal and the balance between delegated acts and implementing acts, the vast majority of the countries agreed with the legal services of the Council that the Commission's initial proposal over-used delegated acts and under-used implementing acts.
Several delegations (France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, etc) got behind the Presidency's idea of exempting retailers selling pre-packaged products from the checks applied to the organic farming production chain.
Another subject on which many delegations had something to say was organic/conventional 'mixed' farms. The proposal provides that organic farms have to be operated 100% organically. However, a high number of countries (including Sweden, United Kingdom, Portugal, Finland and Hungary) feel that it should be possible to run organic and conventional systems side by side, at least for different crops, even if this would mean having to think about tightening up checks (a comment made by Spain and France). These countries take the view that the Presidency's proposal does not go far enough (mixed farms authorised only for research or for seed producers, with an extended transition period for other farms).
Many delegations opposed the removal of the existing derogations, such as the option to use conventional seeds for organic crops in some cases (or conventionally-reared animals in organic livestock farms). A shortage of organic seeds would spell disaster and lead to falling production: exemptions should be kept in place until there is sufficient production of organic seeds (Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Romania and Sweden).
On import conditions for organic products, certain delegations (Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands) stressed the principle of equivalence rather than compliance with EU rules, arguing that developing countries could end up cut off from the EU market. Others, such as France, Romania and the Czech Republic, took the opposite view, arguing the case for going beyond equivalence, in order to ensure that products from third countries meet EU standards.
Lastly, on controls, whilst certain countries (among them the Netherlands, Croatia, Finland, Ireland, Germany and Sweden) support the Commission's position in favour of controls based on risk analysis, others (France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece and others) would like to keep mandatory annual controls. Taking the opposite view to the Commission, many countries (including France, Ireland, Croatia, Denmark, Greece and the Czech Republic) stated that the control conditions for the organic sector should be included in the 'organic farming' text rather than the controls regulation. The Presidency will continue its work on the other articles of the text. (LC)