Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2005)671-1 - Organic production and labelling of organic products - Main contents
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| dossier | COM(2005)671-1 - Organic production and labelling of organic products. |
|---|---|
| source | COM(2005)671  |
| date | 21-12-2005 |
1. In 1991 the Council created with Council Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 the first ever Community framework for organic farming and food production. More than a decade later and having seen a strong development of organic farming, the Commission has started the process of reviewing this framework on the basis of the experience gained.
2. Organic production has seen an impressive growth since the adoption of the Regulation in 1991 and the contribution of the organic agricultural sector is still on the increase in most Member States. According to the most recent statistical data, 149 000 holdings are certified as organic or in conversion to organic production. In 2003 these holdings represent 1,4% of the total of agricultural holdings in the 25 Member States. The certified organic and in-conversion area covered 5,7 mio ha and represented 3,6% of the Utilised Agricultural Area in 2003.
3. In 2001, the Council under Swedish Presidency, taking this development and the conferences on organic food and farming in Austria in 1999 and in Denmark in 2001 into account, invited the Commission to propose a European Action Plan for Organic Food and Farming (EAP). The action plan was asked to formulate the basis for policy development for the organic sector in the coming years, thereby providing an overall strategic vision for organic farming’s contribution to the common agricultural policy.
4. In the run-up to the Action Plan, extensive consultations were held including expert panel meetings, an internet consultation of the wider public and finally a public hearing in January 2004.
5. From these consultations the most important conclusions in the regulatory domain were the need to lay down more explicitly the principles and objectives of organic farming, the importance of safeguarding the integrity of the inspection system, the need to overcome dysfunctions of the internal market caused by national an private logo’s and standards, the need to complete and improve standards and the need to make import provisions more efficient.
6. The Commission adopted the Communication on the EAP in June 2004. The EAP put forward 21 actions to facilitate the ongoing development of organic farming in the EU. In its conclusions of October 2004, the Council invited the Commission to advance on the implementation of the EAP on the basis of concrete measures with the view to assure simplification and overall coherence and to bring forward proposals in this regard in the course of 2005. In fact, several of the actions imply introducing amendments to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 on organic farming.
7. The proposal takes account of the wide public consultation, which took place prior to the adoption of the EAP and responds to the Council conclusions. It also takes account of subsequent responses and numerous written submissions by Member States and stakeholders on a Commission staff working paper titled “information and consultation on key ideas to reform Council Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91”. This consultation took place in the framework of meetings of the standing committee and advisory group on organic farming on respectively 26 September and 5 October 2005.
8. The proposal has taken into account the initial findings of the Research project “Research to support revision of the EU Regulation on organic agriculture”[1] when developing objectives and principles in current proposal. When at a later stage the Commission will draft the detailed implementation rules, the Commission will take into account the end results of Research projects “Research to support revision of the EU Regulation on organic agriculture” and “Development of criteria and procedures for the evaluation of the EAP”[2].
9. As regards to aquaculture the proposal achieves one of the actions of the Commission Communication to the Council and the European Parliament of 2002 on the sustainable development of European aquaculture i, namely “harmonisation of the rules on organic aquaculture under Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91”.
10. Defining and bringing together objectives, principles and basic labelling, control, import and production rules in a simpler, clearer and more transparent Council Regulation, represents a simplification of the current legal framework on organic production. It reduces considerably the level of detail in the Council Regulation and will allow for a further reduction of detail of the implementing rules. The proposal also replaces the current practice of ‘legislation by derogation’ by a transparent strictly regulated mechanism allowing less strict rules (see under flexibility).
11. The essential requirements defining organic production and labelling of organic products are laid down by the principles and production rules formulated in this proposal. The application of these principles will require further detailed rules, the management of which necessitates frequent decisions, such as on the approval of ingredients and substances that may be used in organic products. Furthermore, the recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has placed the production of quality products that protect the environment and animal welfare and respond to societal concerns at its heart. This legislation thus is an important factor in the framework of the Common Agricultural Policy. It is also closely related to the developments on the agricultural markets. In order to facilitate the decision making process and to further integrate quality into the Common Agricultural Policy and its management systems, a Management Committee should replace the current Regulatory Committee.
12. Finally, the control provisions are kept simple by referring to the common framework of Regulation (CE) No 882/20004 ‘on official food and feed controls’[4] (OFFC). Only the provisions specific to organic farming are maintained in the text at hand. The application of the risk based approach of the OFFC will allow for reducing the administrative burden on operators. It is expected that this new approach will allow for a better targeting of controls to the areas presenting the highest risks. It will also allow operators that run risk based internal control systems to benefit from the risk based approach.
13. The proposal at hand thus contributes to the actions mentioned in various simplification initiatives of the Commission. It achieves the first action of the Simplification Rolling Programme for the agricultural and foodstuff industry mentioned in the Communication of the Commission on ‘implementing the Community Lisbon programme: A strategy for the simplification of the regulatory environment’[5]. It is also mentioned as a policy related action in the Communication from the Commission on simplification and better regulation for the Common Agricultural Policy i.
Subject matter, scope and definitions
14. The proposal explicitly covers “organic production” and not just labelling. The proposal does not cover the preparation and sale to the final consumer of meals in large scale kitchens; for example in restaurants, hotels, hospitals and canteens, or in bars and coffeeshops.
15. As regards products, the proposed scope covers unprocessed agricultural products regardless of their final use; namely livestock, unprocessed plant and livestock products and live or unprocessed aquaculture products. Processed agricultural products are proposed to be covered for as far as they are intended for human or animal consumption; namely feed, processed plant, livestock and aquaculture products. It thus provides for objectives, principles and production rules for all products including for organic wines, aquaculture products and processed foodstuffs. Detailed rules for all products may be laid down by a comitology procedure. The latter is particularly relevant for the adoption of detailed rules on organic wine production as that is excluded under the current rules. Production rules for aquaculture will also be established at a later date.
16. No extension of the scope is foreseen at this stage. It is not proposed to include products of hunting and fishing of wild animals; as they are not obtained from farming practices inclusion would not be coherent with the proposed objectives and principles. The scope will also not be extended to the following products not covered by Annex I to the Treaty establishing the European Community; namely minerals, waters, non-food processed agricultural products such as textiles, cosmetics and other industrial products.
17. As stated in the EAP, an appropriate definition of objectives and principles is needed to strengthen the Regulation. In this regard, the proposal formulates the following objectives for organic production:
- protection of consumers’ interest, ensuring consumer confidence and avoiding misleading labelling;
- the development of organic production while taking account of regional differences in climate, farming conditions and the stage of development of organic farming;
- a high level of protection of the environment, biodiversity and natural resources;
- respect of high animal welfare standards that fully meet animals’ species-specific needs.
18. With regard to the underlying principles, most of them already exist in the current detailed rules in the Annexes to Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91. The proposal reformulates these principles in articles in line with the objectives.
19. Further to objectives and principles and for the sake of comprehension, the proposal establishes the basic “production rules” in the reformed Regulation. These production rules should set the parameters of the detailed rules to be laid down by Commission Regulations.
20. The proposal aims at providing the conditions in which the sector can develop and produce in an economically viable manner, in line with production and market developments. To this end it provides for a, certain strictly, regulated flexibility. Under this flexibility provision Member States will be allowed, by a comitology procedure, to apply less strict production rules to account for variation in local climatic, development and specific production conditions. It basically provides for transforming the current multitude of derogations into a general but strictly regulated system. But, contrary to the current system, the conditions, scope and division of competencies between the actors involved in granting exceptions is clearly laid down.
21. In order to continue protecting the term “organic”, current rules on use or references to “organic”, derivatives, diminutives and translations should be maintained.
22. The EU logo should continue to be available on all products that comply with the Regulation, including for all imported products. When preparing the EAP, as a result of discussions with stakeholders and Member States, it was concluded that the EU logo should not be compulsory for the time being, as it may be viewed as an excessive EC interference in commercial freedom in other areas. However, it is proposed in those cases where the product does not bear the EU logo, to make the use of a simple standardised text fragment EU-ORGANIC on labels compulsory for products produced within the Community. This aims at communicating efficiently to all operators in the production chain and to the consumer that the product conforms to a single EU standard.
23. In order to maintain consumer confidence, the use of GMOs and of products produced from or by GMOs should continue to be prohibited in organic farming, as it is the case in the current Regulation. Despite this, in cases where products have been accidentally contaminated by GMOs, the current organic rules do not prohibit the simultaneous labelling as organic and GMO. As announced in the EAP, the proposal prohibits the use of the term organic for GMO labelled products. Finally, the labelling thresholds for organic and non-organic produce should be identical, unless detailed rules foresee specific thresholds for example possibly for organic seeds.
24. The current provision requiring a minimum 95% of the agricultural products to be ‘organic’ should be maintained. However, the category allowing references to the organic production method on the list of ingredients if it contains between 70 and 95% of the agricultural ingredients from organic origin, will be suppressed. In fact, due to the development of the organic sector in recent years, this category of products is not considered to be needed anymore.
25. With regard to controls, Regulation (EC) No 882/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council on official food and feed controls (OFFC) enters into application on 1 January 2006 which covers organic farming. The specific requirements of organic farming need to be aligned with the OFFC. In this regard, the proposal recasts the organic control provisions using the OFFC framework as far as possible to achieve the desired reforms and updates. The detailed provisions specific to organic production remain under the new organic Regulation.
26. As provided for in OFFC, Member States will have to include all production and operations covered by the new Regulation in their multi-annual national control plans and fulfil the requirements of mutual assistance. The multi-annual national control plans have to be notified to the Commission who may ask for amendments and use them to guide Community inspections. Moreover, pursuant to the OFFC private control bodies will have to be accredited. Finally, the proposal requires that competent authorities and control bodies promote and do not undermine the EC organic standard, in line with the principle of a “single concept of organic production”.
27. In order to guarantee the free movement of organic products within the Community, the current provisions requiring Member States to uphold the single market will be retained. In this context the requirement of OFFC on compulsory accreditation of private control bodies, impartiality and freedom of any conflict of interest of designated control bodies is particularly relevant. One of the main purposes of the reform of the organic regulatory framework is to reduce the trade hampering impact on the internal market of multiple public and private certification. The instruments proposed for improving impartiality and reducing conflicts of interest are the integration of private control bodies in the control system, a healthy competition between control bodies and recognition of prior certification decisions for equivalent standards.
28. As regards access to national logos and marks of conformity the proposal foresees imposing full access for all products that comply with the Community rules.
29. The issuing of certificates stating that a certain operator or a specific lot of products is found to comply with the principles and rules of organic farming is a well-established tool in trade of organic products and often conditions access to marks of conformity. Certification practices used by competent authorities or by control bodies to which the competent authority has delegated control tasks should not have, directly or indirectly, restrictive effects on the free movement of organic goods, nor on the freedom of establishment and the free provision of services in the area of issuing of certificates. In this regard certification practices should be more strictly supervised, in particular where mutual recognition of certificates and the collection of fees are concerned. Such supervision should be undertaken without prejudice to the application of Articles 43 and 49 of the Treaty. As regards access to private logos and marks of conformity it foresees rules facilitating access for products that comply with equivalent standards, by placing the burden of proof for not complying with equivalent standards on the control body which logo the operator wishes to use. Finally it provides for ensuring that the fees for control and certification tasks are reasonable.
30. Furthermore, promoting a “single concept” of what constitutes organic production will contribute to consumer recognition and confidence, which in turn is expected to improve the free movement of organic produce. To this end general claims that a certain set of standards will guarantee a “better, stricter or higher standard organic”, directly on organic products or in their advertising or in publicity material should be prohibited. However, non-misleading and true claims of fact will be allowed.
31. A high harmonisation level further reduces the room for private logos and marks of conformity. The proposal therefore maintains the ambition for a high harmonisation level expressed in the EAP. This should be facilitated by the already discussed flexibility mechanism and the adoption of detailed rules by a management committee (see also flexibility).
32. Finally, the guarantees provided by the control system are based on verification of documentary checks, inspections of organic farms and businesses, reconciliation of trade flows and testing of products for absence of prohibited substances. No tests are commercially available to verify the innate characteristics of organic products in an unequivocal and reproducible manner. The Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements in Geel of the Directorate General Joint Research Centre is conducting Research into the development of such tests.
33. With regard to trade with third countries, it is proposed to grant access to the EU market either on the basis of compliance with the EU rules or on equivalent guarantees provided by Third Country authorities or certified EU approved control bodies. The equivalency assessments for the purpose of import will be based on the international standard ( Codex Alimentarius ) or on the Community regulation. Third countries may add their own arrangements where needed. The current system of ‘community list of third countries’ will be maintained. Annual reporting and follow-up control visits with Member States involvement are foreseen. Single product access to the EU market will be granted either on the basis of compliance with the EU standards and submission to the EU system of controls, or on the basis of equivalent guarantees certified by control bodies that have been approved by the Community for that purpose.
34. The proposal does not contain the detailed rules currently laid down in the Annexes to Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91. In order to permit a smooth change over to the new system, it is therefore necessary to allow for a sufficiently long period before it will apply. This period is proposed to be set at 1 January 2009 allowing for the reworking and transposing of the existing detailed rules to the new Regulation.
35. Part of the import provisions of the current Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 run out on 31 December 2006. The new import scheme should thus apply as from 1 January 2007. However, this will leave little time for its implementation, in particular as regards the recognition of control bodies competent to carry out control in those countries which are not on the list of recognised third countries. In order not to disrupt international trade, it is considered necessary to extend the possibility for Member States to continue to grant import authorisations for individual products until the measures necessary for the functioning of the new import scheme have been put in place To this end a second proposal amending Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 is included.
Contents
36. The present proposal does not entail any direct financial implications for the Community budget.