On Monday 18 November, members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) questioned the European Commission on its intentions regarding the EU-Morocco agreement on trade in agricultural products, part of which has been rejected by the Court of Justice of the European Union (see EUROPE 13497/12). However, according to Mauro Poinelli, who represented the European Commission during the exchange, it is “premature to draw conclusions from the Court’s ruling and to announce the next steps”. He only emphasised that the Commission’s objective would be to “preserve the partnership with Morocco”.
The MEPs on the AGRI committee expressed concern about the “uncertainty” affecting agri-food businesses. Mr Poinelli replied that the Court had given the two parties 12 months to find a solution, during which time the trade agreement would continue to apply to products originating in Western Sahara.
For most political groups in Parliament, it is clear that the free trade agreement must be renegotiated. And it’s an opportunity for the Commission to review certain points, such as the standards applied to imports from Morocco, as well as the volumes imported for certain fruit and vegetables. Moroccan tomatoes have been cited several times as an example of a product that is flooding European markets.
“Could this be an opportunity to change the system of minimum entry prices for tomatoes, which is partly circumvented by the creation of batches of tomatoes of different sizes?” asked Éric Sargiacomo (S&D, French).
Carmen Crespo (EPP, Spanish) felt that it was crucial for farmers to have an agreement that was as transparent as possible, with tighter controls on products. She also emphasised compliance with product labelling.
The European Commission representative tried to put the importance of tomatoes from Western Sahara into perspective: according to him, they only represent around 1% of tomatoes consumed in the EU.
He also pointed out that, according to European rules on origin and the CJEU ruling, products from Western Sahara must be labelled as such and not as coming from Morocco. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)