Ref. Ares(2018)5561837 - 30/10/2018
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Secretariat-General
Directorate D - Policy Co-ordination I
SG.D.3-Resource Efficiency
Brussels, 1 June 2017
SI(2017) 289
NOTE TO MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION
Subject:
Meeting of the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA)
Brussels, 29 May 2017 - Summary record
The penultimate SCA under Maltese Presidency confirmed the failure of the Presidency to
conclude the lengthy co-decision process on the review of the Organic Farming Regulation. 17
Member States voted against the final effort of the Presidency to design a new negotiating
mandate in view of the final (eighteenth) trilogue, which was then cancelled. There are several
reasons for the lack of progress:
i) In the past two years, the Council's negotiating position was based on a fragile majority,
which left almost no margin for manoeuvre towards the position of the EP. The starting
negotiating position – the general approach of 16 June 2015 - was de facto backed by only 15
Member States (not even qualified majority). This was adopted under pressure of the
Commission's 2015 Work Programme indication that it would withdraw the proposal if there
was no tangible progress by the end of June 2015.
ii) The original Commission proposal was significantly redesigned by the Council into a
form that is not very much different from the current legislation in place. In addition, the
current rules are rather functional and at the same time allow some flexibility to Member
States regarding strictness of the rules in cases when pesticides residues are detected in a
product marketed as organic. For these reasons, there was very little appetite on the side of a
number of Member States to concede on their interests.
iii) The key issues linked to controls and enforcement created substantive divisions amongst
Member States.
[signed]
Further information:
1.
Adoption of the agenda
I
Commission européenne/Europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111
Office: L130 - Tel. direct line
2.
Summary record of the 1551th meeting of the SCA
9627/17 CRS CSA 11
II
3.
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on
organic production and labelling of organic products, amending Regulation (EU)
No XXX/XXX of the European Parliament and of the Council [Official controls
Regulation] and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007
= Preparation of a revised mandate
The Presidency asked the Delegations whether they could support the revised mandate based on
the Presidency consolidated compromise text (doc. 8993/17) in view of the Trilogue foreseen on
31 May 2017, urging to consider the text in its entirety.
In the exchange of views that followed, 17 Delegations (
expressed a opposition to the Presidency's compromise, while
8 Delegations (
) expressed their support (
subject to some further amendments). The
issued a scrutiny reservation.
The main issues (with some number of issues actually increasing) relate to the use of
unauthorized substances/pesticides (
) where
delegations seemed divided mainly on grounds of lack of harmonisation of the proposed
solutions and the obligation to take measures at national level to protect organic farming ,
greenhouses/use of demarcated beds (
),
aquaculture (
) in relation to discrimination and/or compatibility with organic principles,
control provisions (
), use of databases (
) and seeds
(
), the regulatory framework for unpackaged/bulk products (
,
), and poultry houses (
).
In its response, the Commission shared its disappointment and surprise regarding the high
number of reactions made by the Delegations. The Commission explained that almost all points
had already been dealt with intensively before and that a certain consensus was reached. It also
stressed that an organic label is not a marketing tool and highlighted the particular importance of
seeds (where there is an opportunity to reach an agreement with the EP).
The PRES concluded that there is not broad support within the SCA for the Presidency's
compromise and informed the SCA the Trilogue foreseen for 31 May will not be held.
Reporting:
, DG AGRI, Unit I.5 Tel.:
4.
Organisation of future work
The Presidency informed the SCA about the next
SCA meeting (last one under MT PRES) of
6
June (dedicated to the Rural Development and Horizontal Regulations of the Omnibus) and the
traditional SCA lunch (same day).
The Presidency also informed the SCA about the "Agriculture and Fisheries"
Council on
12
June 2017 in Luxemburg. SCA items will be discussed in the morning and Coreper items in the
afternoon. There will be no fisheries items.
2
The PRES also took note of the following AOB request made by the
delegation for the next
AGRIFISH Council: introduction of formal motion to debate the Union position on agricultural
negotiations in WTO process (against background of post-2020 CAP discussions).
Reporting:
, DG AGRI, Unit I.5 Tel.:
3