Brussels, 11/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - Despite a last-ditch attempt at the meeting of the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) Tuesday 9 December, the Italian Presidency of the Council failed to convince the member states to approve a partial general orientation on the revision of the rules and the organic farming sector at the Council meeting of 15 December (EUROPE 11207). It will have to make do with presenting an interim report, as the dossier will now pass to the Latvian Presidency (1 January to 30 June 2015).
At the meeting of the SCA, most of the member states expressed the view that it was not appropriate to have a Council position, even a partial one, on this highly sensitive dossier this December.
The Italian Presidency was hoping to be able to present a partial general orientation in the form of a compromise on the first 19 articles of the text of the proposal on organic farming. The Presidency took the view that as the subject had been discussed in 13 working groups, the dossier was ready for the Council to take position on it, even if only a partial one.
At the SCA meeting, most of the countries said that mid-December was too soon to agree on a partial general orientation: many delegations argued that further discussions were still needed on the text (a comment made by, amongst others, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary and Estonia). According to a number of countries (Belgium, Croatia, Lithuania, Finland, Denmark and others), the Council should take position on the text as a whole, because articles 1 to 19 are closely related to articles 20 to 45. These countries feel that the presentation of a progress report at the Agriculture Council of 15 December would be far preferable. A handful of countries, such as France, Luxembourg and Romania, said that a partial general orientation could be acceptable as long as a considerable number of changes are made to the text presented by the Presidency. A few delegations (Slovakia, Ireland, Spain, Greece and Portugal) supported the compromise text on the table.
The Italian Presidency will therefore present an interim report to the Council in mid-December. It would have liked the Council to approve a 'political orientation document' (status quo on mixed farms, reducing the number of delegated acts, derogation for non-organic seeds and livestock, simplification of the control system, vendor's declaration on the absence of GM in organic products, etc) to be used as a basis for future debates on the 'organic farming' proposal. A draft political orientation did the rounds of the SCA and won the support of a number of countries (among them France, Spain and Cyprus). However, many delegations (Belgium, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Hungary, Sweden, Austria and others) questioned the legal status of the text. A few countries suggested that the document be included as part of the progress report. The Italian Presidency is considering this option. (LC)