Brussels, 04/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 2 February, member states' experts discussed a number of sensitive issues in the proposal on organic farming, including the accidental presence of pesticides, checks and the import system.
This is one of the main objectives of the Latvian Presidency which hopes to secure a Council agreement in this first half of 2015. In its work programme for this year, the European Commission threatened to withdraw its proposal if the member states and the European Parliament failed to reach a compromise relatively quickly (within six months).
The debate in the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) on Monday 2 February focused on a number of aspects of Articles 20-45 which had not previously been discussed.
Residues of unauthorised substances. Currently there is a general obligation to avoid banned substances (especially pesticides) in organic products but there is no method for achieving this objective and no set limit. Practices vary from one country to another. This can be problematic for trade, since a product accepted as being organic in one country may be refused in another. The Commission proposal makes provision for harmonisation that would remove the differences, with a single threshold based on babyfood rules - 0.01mg/kg. The Commission has built in possible compensation (by country) for losses suffered by organic producers following accidental contamination.
At the CSA meeting, several delegations (Italy, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Ireland, Belgium and others) backed harmonisation. Some experts, however, expressed the view that harmonisation cannot be achieved with a single 0.01mg/kg threshold as proposed. A number of countries (including France, Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, Denmark and Netherlands) stressed that the causes of the contamination would have to be identified and argued that joint detection methods would have to be developed. Some countries, such as Finland and Hungary, argued for the status quo. Others (Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Belgium, Slovenia et al.) said that the notion of unauthorised substances should not just include pesticides but other substances, such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Some delegations (including Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia and Czech Republic) felt that the possibility of compensation was worth exploring. However, many others (Portugal, Finland, Austria, Ireland, Greece, Slovakia, Denmark and more) expressed strong reservations over this idea, arguing that handling applications would cause excessive paperwork because of the difficulty in identifying who or what is responsible in cases of contamination.
Imports. In its proposal, the Commission wants to move from the current so-called “equivalence system” to a “compliance system” in order to avoid discrimination against EU producers: when exporting to the EU, third countries would have to ensure that they apply the same standards as those imposed on EU producers (rather than, as at present, a specific national standard recognised by the EU). The equivalence system could potentially be retained as part of a more general agreement between the EU and a specific third country.
Many countries at the CSA meeting, such as Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania, France, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Germany and Ireland, backed the compliance system arguing that it would be a way to end EU-third country discrimination. Some countries, including France, Germany and Ireland, however, wondered how best to take account of the particularities of the developing tropical countries so that they could continue to export their goods to the EU (derogations, adapting standards, or whatever). Some delegations (Finland, Hungary, Sweden and Slovakia in particular) said that there would have to be a long transition period in the switch from the equivalence system to the compliance system if issues of supply from third countries were to be avoided. For the same reasons, some countries, such as Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, would prefer to retain the equivalence system, perhaps with some improvement, so as not to disadvantage developing countries.
Checks. In terms of monitoring, the Commission proposes a risk analysis-based system be put in place, concentrating on the operators most exposed to fraud and thus reducing the checks to be carried out on the “virtuous” who abide by the rules. Checks in the organic sector, currently carried out annually, will be removed. Monitoring provisions will be included in the official control general regulation that is examined by the Council and the Parliament.
Several countries (Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, Croatia, Finland, Spain et al.) took the view that the risk analysis proposed was the right way to reduce costs and increase the effectiveness of the checks. The majority of countries (including France, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, Greece, Austria, Portugal, Hungary and Czech Republic), however, expressed their preference for a mixed system, with the retention of compulsory annual checks and a risk analysis to determine which operators should be more closely monitored.
The debate on organic farming will resume in the CSA on 9 February, at which a compromise text on the other important issues of the regulation (Articles 1-19) will be presented. (LC)