Riga, 02/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 1 and Tuesday 2 June in Riga, EU Agriculture Ministers managed to make progress during their informal meeting as part of the negotiations on the organic farming dossier. It even seems as if a compromise on the most sensitive question is within reach: what should be done in the event of non-authorised substances occurring in organic products?
The Special Committee for Agriculture (SCA) will be meeting up on Friday 5 June to debate a new compromise proposal on organic farming.
On Tuesday 2 June, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Phil Hogan, stated that the informal meeting will give the Latvian presidency an opportunity to fine-tune the final position on the three issues that were outstanding at the last occasion under discussion (thresholds, controls and imports). The Commissioner said: “I am confident now that the presidency has a good sense of what the landing ground is on those issues”.
Thresholds Question. During a work session on the future of the organic farming sector, countries like Italy, Belgium, Spain and the Czech Republic repeated the fact that they were in favour of introducing a “decertification” threshold if pesticides and herbicides were contained in organic products. This means that these products could only be sold as conventional agricultural products and not as organic products. It is particularly on this sensitive issue that EU Agriculture Ministers will have to negotiate in order to reach a “general approach” during the Council on 16 June in Luxembourg. Belgium, followed by Spain and Romania, suggested leaving this option up to the countries that have already introduced a “decertification” threshold (therefore, a threshold on a voluntary basis).
The Polish Minister, Marek Sawicki, informed a number of journalists on Monday that they needed to find “a solution where we can guarantee to the consumers that they get foods without residues”. The Polish minister explained: “In some cases when residues are found, this is not the producers fault. We have to be more clear and be more specific about testing procedures in order to identify if residues are due to some irregularities on the part of the producer. We have not yet developed the testing methods and we do not have a common position with the EU. Definitely organic food should be free from GMOs, from heavy metals and from plant protection products that are not allowed”.
On Monday, the Spanish Minister, Isabel García Tejerina, explained to journalists that in her country, when an organic product contains a non-tolerated substance, this product can no longer be sold as an organic product but can be sold as a conventional agricultural product. This is followed by an investigation and if the producer can prove that contamination is accidental, the farm can keep its organic farming status but if the product is incriminated, the Spanish Minister explained that they do not have a decertification threshold in Spain, “but we are open to the idea of such a system”.
Willy Borsus, the Belgian minister for agriculture, informed a number of journalists that “we want to support the compromise but to do so we need thresholds that are the same in all the member states and included in the legislation”. Belgium believes that as soon as a prohibited molecule is detected in an organic product “decertification” is required. The objective is to preserve the image of the organic farming sector. Borsus also believes it is important that they have the same level of demands in the inspections carried out on products imported from non-EU countries and concluded, “we will not be able to support a compromise if the notion of a threshold is absent because we believe this will be a step backwards compared to what we are applying in Belgium”.
Controls. The vast majority of countries support the compromise on the table: annual inspections, with the possibility of more staggered controls (every two or three years) when there is less risk involved. Denmark, France and Italy all pointed out the importance of keeping annual controls but appear to support the compromise text. The Netherlands did not want to maintain annual controls.
A threshold in… 2020?
The Acting President of the Agriculture Council, Janis Duklavs, said that an overwhelming majority of countries at the Council did not support the idea of a threshold. And what if this threshold were introduced, for example, in 2020-2021? The Latvian Minister replied: “This is still an option but an agreement at the Council would not mean that the regulation is adopted. There will be negotiations to begin with the European Parliament”. The EP's Agriculture Committee plans to adopt the report on organic farming in July.
IFOAM EU, an organisation representing organic producers, and Copa-Cogeca will also be speaking out against a decertification threshold. (Lionel Changeur).