Brussels, 10/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - Several agriculture ministers repeated their criticism, on Monday 10 November, of the draft regulation revising the rules on organic production and the labelling of organic products (see EUROPE 11191 and 11121).
Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic in particular suggested that the European Commission bring forward a fresh proposal. Many countries said that conclusions on this matter should not be rushed since the European Parliament is not proposing to take its stance until May 2015.
The Slovakian delegation presented the joint statement by the Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Slovakian, Bulgarian, Romanian and Slovenian ministers on the legislative proposal. In this statement, the signatory countries set out their concerns over changes that could occur as a result of the proposed regulation and that would harm organic production in the EU. They stress, for example, the need to: - keep a number of exemptions in place, such as allowing non-organic seeds to be used in organic production; - retaining the possibility of having facilities combining organic and non-organic production in the same farm; - reducing the number of delegated acts proposed by the Commission in the regulation and including more provisions in the basic legislative act.
On Monday, several countries supported the statement by the so-called Visegrad countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
While some countries (the Netherlands, Croatia, Finland, Ireland, Germany, Sweden and others) support the Commission position in favour of monitoring based on risk analysis, others (France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece et al) want to see compulsory annual checks retained.
European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan hailed the progress made so far thanks to the efforts of the Italian Presidency of the Council and of the previous Greek Presidency. Not wishing to remove the proposal from the table, he said he was ready to work constructively with the Council and the Parliament so that agreement can be reached on this issue in 2015. In other words, he is prepared to see his proposal undergo amendment. (LC)