The European Commission announced on Tuesday, 27 July, that it has launched infringement procedures against 12 EU Member States for failing to transpose EU rules banning unfair trading practices in the agri-food sector.
Adopted on 17 April 2019, the directive (https://bit.ly/3l90AfU ) on unfair trading practices in the agricultural supply chain protects not only all European farmers but also small and medium-sized suppliers from 16 unfair trading practices in which larger buyers in the food supply chain might engage. This directive, which concerns agricultural and food products traded in the supply chain, prohibits (for the first time at the EU level) any trading partner from unilaterally imposing such unfair practices on another.
The deadline for transposing the directive into national law was 1 May 2021. To date, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Finland, and Sweden have notified the European Commission that they have adopted all measures necessary to transpose the directive and have thus completed the transposition. Estonia and France have indicated that their legislation only partially transposed the directive.
The European Commission has sent letters of formal notice to Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Slovenia requesting that they adopt the required measures and notify the institution of these measures. Member States now have two months to respond. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)