The European Parliament’s agriculture committee was less than bowled over in Brussels on Monday 10 July by the compromise that was reached only after difficult negotiation on the organic farming rules (see EUROPE 11819).
The general feeling in the committee on Monday was that the compromise text on organic farming is far from perfect but it was crucial that the EU institutions reach agreement on the issue.
The rapporteur, Martin Häusling (Greens/EFA, Germany) spoke of a good compromise even though “some areas could be improved”. In his view, however, Parliament can count itself lucky.
The agriculture committee will adopt the text of the regulation in October before the plenary session puts it to the vote at the end of this year or start of next. The text will come into force in 2020.
The agreement will help the sector to grow, said Norbert Lins (EPP, Germany). Eric Andrieu (S&D, France) spoke of an acceptable outcome.
MEPs disappointed over thresholds. Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italy) expressed his opposition to the inter-institutional compromise. He bemoaned “the great danger” that will result from each country being able to do “as it wishes” on pesticide residues. Not having thresholds means that citizens will think that organic products contain unauthorised substances, he lamented. It should be noted that the compromise states that the Commission is to deliver a report on this issue, accompanied, if necessary, by legislative proposals.
Marc Tarabella (S&D, Belgium) would have liked to have seen a more rigorous regulation. He underlined the positives (seeds, databases) and did not overlook the weaknesses. On pesticide residues, there should have been attempts at harmonisation, he said, indicating that he felt there had been a lack of ambition. On checks, “we’re opening the door to fraud” and, on growing crops under glass, the flexibility afforded the northern countries contravenes the rule that requires contact with the ground, he said. “I’m disappointed. The regulation is flawed and protects ‘organic business’”, he stated. Maria Noichl (S&D, Germany), highly sceptical over the quality of the final outcome, said that the text ultimately agreed ran the risk of leaving the organic sector in a situation of the greatest uncertainty.
Failure would have been harmful. The European Commission representative acknowledged that the Commission had been much more ambitious at the outset. However, it has to be pleasing that agreement was reached, even though it is “far from perfect”. It would have been more harmful for the sector and for the institutions of the EU had the negotiations failed, in the Commission’s view. Checks will not be weakened, assured the Commission representative, stating that checks would be tightened where the risks were greater. Häusling pointed out that the Council was very divided on the issue of thresholds for unauthorised substances.
Criticism within Council, too. On Monday, the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) discussed the outcome of the trialogue (see EUROPE 11816). Some delegations, such as those of Denmark, Austria and Poland, felt that the agreement had not taken their requests into account. Germany, too, which had pushed hard for a compromise to be found, was critical of some parts of the text.
Some legislative tidying-up still has to be done before the final text becomes available. This is unlikely to be before the end of September or start of October. (Original version on French by Lionel Changeur)