EU Member States supported the Commission's proposals on Wednesday 11 September to improve fairness in the food supply chain by introducing more transparency in the way prices are reported.
These proposals complement the Directive to prohibit certain unfair trading practices in the food supply chain (see EUROPE 12260/17).
According to Phil Hogan, European Commissioner for Agriculture, "increasing market transparency means providing more information, more products and more often". These rules will strengthen the role of farmers in the food supply chain, he also commented.
While there is a large amount of information available about developments in agricultural markets (prices, volumes of production, stocks, etc.), there is almost no market information about other key markets in the agri-food supply chain, namely those that operate between farmers and consumers at the food processing and at the retail level.
The measures will cover the meat, dairy products, wine, cereals, oilseeds and protein crops, fruit and vegetables, sugar and olive oil sectors.
Data collection will be based on procedures that are already in place, used by operators and Member States to provide the Commission with market information. Each Member State will be responsible for the collection of price and market data.
The Commission recommends that Member States choose the most cost-effective approach and not target SMEs in order to reduce the administrative burden. Member States will communicate the data to the Commission, who will in turn make the monitoring available on its agri-food data portal and on the websites of EU market observatories. It is essential that the information provided by Member States is accurate and timely.
The measures will be adopted by the Commission in the coming weeks and will apply from 1 January 2021. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)