The Austrian Presidency confirmed on Monday 10 September that it wanted agreement between the European Parliament and Council by the end of December on the proposal to strengthen the fight against unfair or disloyal commercial practices (UCP) in the food supply chain (see EUROPE 12058, 12056).
The Austrian Presidency of the Council presented the Special Agriculture Committee (SAC) with a compromise text on the draft directive and identified two blockage points: the text’s scope of application and the burden of proof.
In terms of scope of application, the presidency proposes keeping the field of application proposed by the European Commission and leaving to the member states the possibility of maintaining or introducing stricter national rules than those foreseen it the directive.
When it comes to the burden of proof (Article 3 (2a)), the Austrian presidency asks whether the purchaser should be responsible for proving that the terms and conditions of a supply agreement were clear and unambiguous.
The Visegrad Group (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) + 4 (Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia) presented proposals on enlarging the scope of application only to buyers.
The Austrian presidency has foreseen a new debate on the issue of UCP on 17 September at the SAC and in a future meeting, it will ask the Council for a negotiating mandate for entering talks with the European Parliament. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)