Brussels, 13/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - At the Council meeting in Brussels on Monday 13 July, a large majority of EU agriculture ministers were in favour of resuming discussions on the proposal merging the programmes for distributing fruit and vegetables and milk in schools. The problems that were thrown up relate to the choice of legal basis, the sharing out of aid and the products involved.
European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan said that evaluation of these programmes demonstrates that their objectives are relevant, particularly as consumption of these products continues to fall. He indicated that improvements could be made to the design of the schemes to make them more effective while nevertheless emphasising the principle of subsidiarity. He added there was strong political support for these schemes to be pursued at European level. Stakeholders have identified two points that will have to be addressed: the choice of products and the requirements that apply to accompanying measures. The Commission believes that the schemes are very effective in relation to their cost. Hogan called on the Council and the European Parliament to continue to consider the 2014 proposal.
The Commissioner said simply that the issue of the legal basis would have to be resolved at the next stages of the dialogue between the institutions.
In January 2014, the Commission adopted two proposals merging the programmes. In November 2014, the Council wrote to the Commission, calling on it to amend the legal basis of its proposals arguing that the provisions on setting the level of aid should be based on Article 43 paragraph 3 TFEU (Council responsibility). While awaiting the Commission response, the technical examination of the proposals was suspended within the Council. The Parliament did not act upon the Commission recommendation and adopted its first reading position on 27 May 2015.
Several ministers argued for the scheme to be continued (only Sweden said that these initiatives were matters of national responsibility). The Polish minister stated that his country was going to ban the sale of junk food in schools from September.
Eligibility of products. Spain called for the scheme to be extended to include processed fruit and vegetables, dairy products, olive oil, table olives, honey and nuts. Portugal also asked for olive oil and honey to be included and for benefits to be built in for less favoured and outermost regions.
Slovenia said that the milk scheme had brought less good results but that it was important to keep these measures in place at a time of milk surpluses and falling prices. Belgium stressed that these schemes presented a “positive” image of the common agricultural policy (CAP).
Legal basis. Several ministers argued that the issue of the legal basis should be settled first. Germany, then United Kingdom, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary called on the Commission to amend its proposal and base it on Article 43.3.
Allocation of aid. Finland expressed concern at how aid was to be shared out, and called for historic criteria to be used. Spain called for the same criteria to be used for both schemes. Hungary and Estonia, like Finland, called for historic criteria to be used. The Luxembourg Presidency confirmed its political will to continue to work on this issue and indicated that it wanted to begin discussions with the European Parliament as early as this autumn. (Lionel Changeur)