Brussels, 12/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - At the second trialogue meeting on the scheme to distribute milk fruit and vegetables in schools on Wednesday 11 November, the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU found itself at odds with MEPs over the legal basis of the text. Talks have been suspended for the moment.
“While recalling its attachment to reach a positive conclusion of this issue, the Presidency deems that it is appropriate to wait before setting the date of the next trilogue. It considers that further informal contacts in the meantime will allow to clarify some elements discussed and will facilitate those negotiations to resume efficiently as soon as possible”, states a Presidency press release.
The Council decided to change the legal basis for most of the provisions in the proposal, preferring Article 43(3) of the Treaty (Council having exclusive power) to Article 43(2) (co-decision). A mandate was given to the Luxembourg Presidency at the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) of 12 October, to enter negotiations with the Parliament (see EUROPE 11411). At the first trialogue meeting on 20 October, Parliament made it clear to the Council that it would refuse to continue to talk unless the Council did not state explicitly in its negotiating mandate that there could be co-decision on a number of key points of the proposal, in particular the overall budget, the criteria for deciding national envelopes and the extent of possible transfers from one scheme to another.
Following somewhat delicate negotiations with the member states, the Presidency proposed amending the mandate to indicate that the Parliament could be involved in setting the overall budget of the scheme, suggesting that Article 43(2) be used as the legal basis rather than 43(3). Parliament, however, did not feel that this went far enough. At the SCA meeting on Monday 9 November, several countries (among them France and Germany, and also Poland and the Czech Republic) said that they did not want the Parliament to take it as granted that Article 43(2) would be the legal basis.
Currently there are two separate schemes (one for fruit and vegetables and the other for milk) that receive EU funding. In January 2014, the Commission presented two proposals merging the schemes, one of which amends the new single common market organisation (single CMO) regulation under the reformed common agricultural policy (CAP) and the other the regulation fixing certain aids and refunds. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)