With the European Parliament due to vote on a revision of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) on Tuesday 28 April, a number of players are calling for the threshold for triggering the safeguard mechanism for the rice sector to be lowered.
In December 2025, the co-legislators agreed on an automatic mechanism based on tariff quotas, solely for rice from Cambodia and Myanmar (see EUROPE 13714/15). This would be activated in the event of an increase of more than 45% in imports compared with the previous year and provided that volumes exceed 562,000 tonnes per year, for Cambodia and Myanmar combined (see EUROPE 13764/14).
But the text’s rapporteur, Gabriel Mato (EPP, Spanish), and the negotiator for the ECR Group had already expressed reservations about this mechanism. On the eve of the plenary vote, this issue is up for discussion again, and Madrid has expressed its support for a change in the thresholds.
“Spain supports this initiative and we hope it will be adopted, as we are a rice-producing country, second only to Italy. We believe it is necessary to have protection instruments for our producers”, declared the Spanish Minister for Agriculture, Luis Planas, on the sidelines of the Agriculture Council on Monday 27 April in Luxembourg (see other news). “I very much hope that the amendment to this clause, as proposed, will be approved tomorrow by Parliament”, he added.
Later in the day, the organisations Eat Europe and Farm Europe also called for a review of the scheme. While the automatic safeguard clause is a step forward, they feel that the activation threshold is too high to be truly operational. In a letter to MEPs, they call for a reduction to 20%, to enable a quicker reaction in the event of disruption.
“An automatic safeguard mechanism must be operational, not just theoretical”, they stress. According to these organisations, this reduction in thresholds for rice could also set a precedent for other vulnerable agricultural sectors, such as sugar and ethanol, which are also exposed to the volatility of world markets.
If the text is amended in plenary, it will then have to undergo further interinstitutional negotiations (trilogue). (Original version in French by Juliette Verdes with Lionel Changeur)