Short of the completely unforeseen, the Slovak Presidency of the Council will not be able to negotiate a final agreement on organic farming with the European Parliament on Wednesday 7 December (see EUROPE 11682). This matter will, then, have to be handed on to the Maltese Presidency of the Council in the first six months of next year.
At the meeting of the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) on Monday 5 December, the Slovak Presidency presented a “package” on organic farming to the member states (a compromise text that would satisfy MEPs and the Commission). This text did not, however, receive the backing of the SCA delegations, apart from Portugal’s.
Several countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia and Luxembourg, were against the introduction, wanted by the Commission, of: - thresholds for the presence of plant health products; - automatic de-listing of products as organic where the presence of several pesticides is detected (“cocktails”).
The delegations also rejected other parts of the package that would have facilitated agreement with Parliament: on the delicate issue of seeds, on growing crops in under glass, on databases (derogations) and on a number of precautionary measures.
Acknowledgement of defeat. The trialogue meeting on Wednesday 7 December (due to be the 14th and last) on organic farming is nonetheless expected to go ahead. However, as the Slovak Presidency does not have a mandate to negotiate a compromise text with MEPs, Parliament is expected to “take note” that conclusion of an agreement is impossible at this stage. MEPs want, nevertheless, to continue talks on the basis of progress made hitherto, sources have indicated.
The failure is a hard blow for the Slovak Presidency. It made organic farming one of its priorities and it spared no effort in trying to broker an agreement among the EU institutions on this highly sensitive and complex issue. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)