Brussels, 07/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - The EP has urged the Commission to bring forward proposals against unfair trading practices in the food supply chain. In Strasbourg on Tuesday 7 June, Parliament adopted the report by Edward Czesak (ECR, Poland) dealing specifically with this issue. The voting was 600 in favour, 28 against, with 24 abstentions.
Against the background of the crisis that is hitting a number of agricultural sectors (including milk and dairy products and pig meat), Parliament approved two amendments tabled by the agriculture committee which is bringing pressure to bear so that the EU adopts legislation to deal with unfair trading practices (UTPs), such as, delaying payments, restricting access to the market, unilateral or retroactive changes to contract terms, sudden and unjustified cancellation of contracts, unfair transfers of commercial risk and transferring transport and storage costs to suppliers.
Parliament says that framework legislation at EU level is necessary in order to tackle UTPs and “to ensure that European farmers and consumers have the opportunity to benefit from fair selling and buying conditions”. It makes the point that this framework legislation must not lower the level of protection in those countries which have already passed domestic legislation to tackle unfair trading between companies. The Commission says that 20 EU countries already have laws in place against UTPs.
The aim, MEPs say, should be to ensure fair and transparent trade relations among food producers, suppliers and distributors. Fair trading should in turn help to prevent overproduction and food waste, they add.
The EU already has legislation to combat unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices (Directive 2005/29/EC), but there are no EU rules to combat unfair practices between different operators in the agri-food chain. UTPs are only partly covered by competition law. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)