Brussels, 25/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - Negotiations between the EU institutions to update the rules on the production of organic foods are proving very difficult, the members of the European Parliament's agriculture committee admitted late on Tuesday 24 May (see EUROPE 11497).
Prospects of agreement being reached on organic farming under the Dutch Presidency, that is, before the end of June, would seem to be receding.
MEP Martin Häusling (Greens/EFA, Germany), the rapporteur on this issue, conceded that agreement among the three EU institutions was “not coming easily”. He said he hoped the European Commission would bring forward further proposals to break the deadlock. On the matter of the presence of unauthorised substances (pesticides), for example, some argue that the Commission is not being flexible, with its insistence that thresholds be set.
Häusling pointed out, too, that the Council had not moved one inch from its negotiating mandate, “making agreement very difficult on certain points”, for example, on what should feature in the basic regulation: what about organic livestock farming which Parliament wants to be included in the basic regulation? He hoped that the Council would be prepared to be flexible, “if we really want to negotiate and make progress, particularly as time is of the essence”. Häusling stressed that monitoring arrangements must remain in the organic farming regulation.
Further sources of “open conflict” are the delegated and implementing acts and the date of entry into force of the new rules.
Haüsling acknowledged progress had been made on monitoring and certification. He argued for very clear labelling for imports and exports.
He said that, on the issue of unauthorised substances (pesticide residue), “we have moved closer together”. The positions of the Council and the Parliament are very similar: “contamination of organic production and fraud have to be avoided”, he said.
A further trialogue meeting on organic farming is due to take place on Thursday 26 May and additional trialogues will be convened in the coming weeks “to bring a result”. But will this result be a good one? “We'll see and we'll also see what the incoming Slovakian Presidency thinks about it”, Haüsling stated.
Esther Herranz Garcia (EPP, Spain) highlighted the problem of the outermost regions (ORs): there must be no discrimination with regard to imports from third countries, she warned, calling for exemptions to be granted to the ORs. Julie Girling (ECR, UK) was very pessimistic about the chances of reaching a compromise by the end of June, given that there was no agreement on monitoring or on the presence of pesticides (issue of thresholds).
Hannu Takkula (ALDE, Finland) thanked the rapporteur for taking account in the negotiations of the specific circumstances of the Nordic countries which want to argue for continuing organic production in greenhouses (including the production of lettuces) in those countries where the soil is liable to freezing.
Daniel Buda (EPP, Romania) argued that, if there had to be thresholds (for pesticide residues), they had to be the same in all countries and not vary from one to the other.
Seeds used in organic production should be organic around 2020-2021, stressed the rapporteur. The problem is agreeing a definition of organic seeds. With regard to unauthorised substances, the precautionary principle had to be strengthened: farmers should not be penalised because their neighbours use pesticides, Häusling said. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)