Strasbourg, 24/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 24 April in Strasbourg, the European Parliament decided to reject the Council's request for an emergency vote on the proposal on new rules for production and labelling of organic food products. MEPs want to use all the time they have available to convince the Commission and member states of the need to establish new rules according the co-decision procedure.
The rapporteur on the dossier, Marie-Hélène Aubert (Greens/EFA, France), said that there was “no need” to reach any emergency decision on this regulation, which would not be entering into force until January 2009. There are still two plenary sessions before the end of the German presidency and the dossier will again be tackled at the agriculture committee on 7-8 May, explained Aubert.
On 29 March, the EP asked for co-decision to be applied because the regulation did not only involve agricultural products (covered by the consultation procedure under Article 37 of the Treaty) but processed food stuffs as well (submitted to co-decision as stipulated in Article 95 on internal market rules). Faced with the refusal of the Commission and the Council to grant their request, MEPs decided to postpone the vote on the resolution and send the dossier back to the agriculture committee to continue negotiations (EUROPE 9397). (lc)