Prospects for the final negotiations on organic farming are not looking good as the Slovak Presidency of the Council is struggling to have the Council mandate amended to finalise the compromise with the European Parliament (see EUROPE 11669).
The last-chance organic farming trialogue on Wednesday 7 December could very well end in failure, so great do the differences appear on major sensitive issues, such as thresholds for pesticide traces and seeds. At the special committee on agriculture (SCA) on Monday 5 December, several delegations refused to amend the Council mandate, for example, on thresholds for unauthorised substances.
Thresholds. The Commission advocates thresholds for the presence of plant health products that are not authorised in organic farming, while the Council and the European Parliament oppose this idea. Parliament has proposed a procedure for determining the source of contamination (liability or not of the operator). When responsibility lies with the operator, the product will be de-listed, meaning that it cannot be produced or sold as organic. The Commission tabled a new proposal over the last trialogues: even where the farmer has not done anything wrong, if one or more undesirable substances (pesticides) are detected, the product will be automatically de-listed (the talk is of “cocktails). Sources indicate that it is difficult to achieve EU-wide harmonised techniques for detecting and quantifying chemicals. It is far from certain, therefore, that either the Council or the Parliament will agree to this highly controversial notion of “cocktails”. The Commission also proposes that when one single pesticide (at a level three times higher than the detection threshold) is found, there may be de-listing if the monitoring authorities demonstrate that the farmer had no need to be using that substance (or else the farmer will be allowed to have a second check carried out after harvesting).
Parliament has called for databases to be set up that make it possible to find out in real time about the availability of non-organic reproductive products for crops and animals (derogations). The Commission has taken up this idea, with the intention of ending the derogations by 2030 by which time there will be enough reproductive material. The Commission will have the opportunity to take stock in 2025 and end the derogations a little earlier. The Council believes that setting up these databases is unduly burdensome.
Seeds. Currently, the conventional seeds available to organic farming have to be listed in a catalogue. Parliament wants to allow the use of a broader use of material other than the “varieties”. It wants to make it possible for “heterogeneous” material (farm seeds) to be used in organic farming, which would broaden biodiversity. The Commission does not want any specific rules on seeds in organic production rules. It is of the view that such rules should be contained in the general regulations on seed production and marketing. Parliament is insisting that the Commission concedes on making a minimum of heterogeneous material available on the market.
Among the other unresolved issues is that of glasshouse crops (arrangements for growing plants in containers). The Slovak Presidency has worked very hard to achieve a compromise among the institutions on organic farming. Sources are concerned that negotiations on this very sensitive and highly technical issue might become bogged down under Maltese presidency from 1 January 2017. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)