Brussels, 28/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Italian Presidency of the Council of the EU is extremely keen for the Council to reach a partial compromise, in December, on the new rules on organic farming. However, the differences between the member states are so great that ultimately, the Italian Presidency may not be able to do any more than to present a progress report on the dossier (report on the work carried out over the last six months) at the final Agriculture Council of its Presidency, on 15 and 16 December. To sum up the work carried out on articles 1 to 19, Italy hopes to annex to the progress report a proposed compromise on the second part of the regulation (imports, controls, pesticides, etc). According to certain sources, however, the dossier is politically extremely sensitive and the Italian Presidency is still working towards securing the best possible result at the December Agriculture Council.
Negotiations on organic farming will therefore continue under the Latvian Presidency of the Council, from 1 January 2015. They may be concluded under the Luxembourg Presidency in the second half of the year.
No pressure on the timetable
The last exchanges between the national experts of the Council working group specifically dedicated to this dossier showed that Italy, which has made this one of its priorities in agriculture, is going to have to give up on its hopes of leading the Council to a 'partial general approach' at the meeting of the European agriculture ministers on 15 and 16 December. There was much criticism, at the last meeting of the working group on 24 November, of the compromise text of the Italian Presidency. In particular, many delegations (led by Germany and followed, amongst others, by the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic) said that they did not want a partial general approach in December. Several delegations argue that there is no urgent need to move this work forward, particularly as the European Parliament is not planning to adopt its position until May 2015. Also, if the Council's position is decided upon too soon, the risk is that it could end up with a position which is far removed from that of the EP, meaning that a lot of time is then lost on trialogues. Other countries, such as France, accepted the principle of a partial general approach in December, but they wanted this to be focused on the subjects the Council had had plenty of time to work on under the Italian Presidency.
The Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) of 9 December is expected to discuss the legislation on organic agriculture once again. At the last Council meeting, several countries, among them Germany and the Netherlands, called on the Commission to present a new proposal on the organic dossier.
Pesticides and imported products. The Commission's proposal aimed considerably to limit the use of pesticides (crop rotation, authorisation for the use of certain phyto-pharmaceutical products if the techniques do not guarantee adequate protection and only if these phyto-pharmaceutical products are authorised, etc). At this stage, however, countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom are opposed to the proposed provisions on the 'declassification threshold' (level of presence of pesticides above which products cannot be labelled organic.
Additionally, these countries and other large importers of organic products are opposed to the sections of the text which aim to harmonise import conditions from third countries. The EU imports organic from 130 third countries countries and there are around 70 different standards on organic.
Readers may recall that the Presidency won the favour of several countries when it decided against removing certain derogations in place at the moment (which the Commission wanted to get rid of), by giving the green light to mixed farms (farming organically and conventionally side by side) and by seeking to clarify the text on the balance between delegated acts and implementing acts.
Rather than withdraw his text, as he has been asked to do by certain countries, the new European Commissioner for Agriculture, Phil Hogan, has already said that he is prepared to be “flexible” to make certain changes to the initial proposal, without going into more detail on the provisions in question. (LC)