Brussels, 05/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 11 April in Luxembourg, the Agriculture Council is expected to adopt, without debate, the new regulation on the system for providing fruit and vegetables, bananas and milk to schools. The Hungarian and Dutch delegations are expected to vote against this, whilst the United Kingdom is expected to abstain.
On 8 March last, the European Parliament worked out its position on this question in a first reading (EUROPE 11507). The result of the European Parliament vote reflects the inter-institutional compromise obtained between the two co-legislating institutions. The Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) confirmed the agreement of member states on the text on Monday 4 April and called on the Council of the EU to permanently ratify the agreement. The legislative act will therefore be adopted on Monday. The EU budget planned will be to the tune of €250 million a year over a six year period: €150 million for fruit and vegetables and €100 million for milk.
In a statement, Hungary explained that it had suggested during the negotiations that they set out indicative allocations for the two schemes (milk separate from the fruit and vegetable programmes) on the basis of historical criteria, "for the sake of ensuring the fulfilment of the European objectives of the schemes and the effective use of financial resources". Hungary is not happy with the agreement because historic criteria is only considered as part of the school milk distribution system as part of the third criterion.
In another statement, Lithuania accepted the compromise but argued that budgetary provisions, approval of the budget of aid scheme, transfers between product groups and criteria of the distribution of aid between member states - should be adopted by the Council in accordance with the Article 43 (3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). In addition, Lithuania is of the opinion that the merging of those two schemes does not bring any added value.
In a joint statement, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland and Slovenia welcomed the fact that the overall compromise now bases the indicative distribution of aid among the Member States on Article 43 (3) TFEU. However, the above mentioned delegations consider Article 43 (3) TFEU to be in principle the more appropriate legal basis for rules on the transfer of funds from one sector to the other as well. The above mentioned delegations therefore call upon the Council and the European Parliament to ensure that the selection of Article 43 (paragraph 2 - co-decision) or Article 43 (paragraph 3) as legal basis is subjected to a thorough and differentiated examination for all future draft legislation. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)