Today the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the Commission’s proposal for a new EU organic regulation, Green MEP Martin Häusling, has presented his report to the Parliament Agriculture Committee.
“We welcome Martin Häusling’s report, which better reflects the needs of the organic sector, and is in line with the opinion of the Committee of the Regions and the independent evaluation report subcontracted by the Commission in 2012. It is a major step in the right direction, focusing on the needed improvements in the current legislation and clearly showing an understanding that an evolution of the organic regulation is needed, not a revolution”, said IFOAM EU President Christopher Stopes.
“One of the main issues hampering the organic sector is uneven implementation by Member States and the Green’s report adds new proposals to the discussion,” stated Marco Schlüter, IFOAM EU Director. “The report also removes the most problematic elements of the Commission’s proposal, including the wrong-headed decertification threshold which would make organic farmers and processors pay for the pollution caused by adventitious contamination. In restoring the control aspects to the organic regulation, MEP Häusling also reinforces the fact that organic food and farming is based on a principled process of production, which cannot be evaluated simply by testing a final product. Import is another area where progress has been made, as the Green MEP corrects the Commission’s flawed compliance-based approach which would be detrimental to developing countries and would affect the availability of products for EU processors and consumers. Overall Häusling’s report is a good basis for discussion, even though some aspects need to be fine-tuned”.
IFOAM EU looks forward to continuing to work with the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission to turn the Commission’s original proposal for a new organic regulation into an improvement on the current regulation. It must work in practice and support the further development of the organic sector in Europe. However, with the integrity of the EU organic standard and the livelihoods of thousands of organic producers at stake, it is essential that the deadline set by the Commission does not put at risk the quality of the regulation.
Read MEP Häusling’s report here.
