On Wednesday 12 November, EU Council and European Parliament negotiators reached a provisional agreement on a proposal to strengthen the protection of farmers against unfair commercial practices (UCPs) by purchasers of agricultural products.
This provisional agreement still has to be approved by the Council and Parliament (see EUROPE 13733/28).
The regulation strengthens the fight against UCPs (late payments, unilateral changes to orders, refusal of written purchase contracts), to which farmers and small producers fall victim at the hands of buyers and large distribution chains.
For Stefano Bonaccini (S&D, Italian), the European Parliament’s rapporteur, “all EU countries will be obliged to collaborate, by sharing information, carrying out joint investigations or inspections and penalising unfair practices”.
The agreement provides for closer cooperation between Member States, with national authorities obliged to put an end to any unfair cross-border practice on the territory of the Member State concerned. Member States with more ambitious approaches to combating these abuses (Italy, France, Spain) will be able to apply the new rules to investigate and put an end to unfair practices prohibited at national level (such as the ban on selling below production cost). These prohibited practices could go beyond the sixteen prohibited by the 2019 directive.
An early warning system is planned, under which the Commission and national authorities will have to share all information on the existence or risk of cross-border UCPs.
The Regulation provides for the same collaboration arrangements where the request concerns practices suffered by third-country producers or imposed by third-country purchasers, in order to guarantee adequate levels of protection against unfair commercial practices applied by certain central purchasing bodies located outside the EU.
To reinforce the responsibility of non-EU buyers, there are plans to designate “a contact person responsible for the EU” when an investigation is opened against them, on pain of being reported as non-cooperative to the 27 national authorities. This contact point should facilitate UCP investigations.
Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen has confirmed that the Commission will shortly be presenting a report on the evaluation of the 2019 directive on UCPs. “We will then begin the process of revising this directive, based on the lessons learned”, he said. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)