The European Commission has outlined plans to set up a EUR15m fund to promote fresh fruit and vegetables hit by the recent E. coli crisis.

Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos proposed a regulatory change on Tuesday (5 July) which will enable professional organisations to submit additional promotional programmes for fresh fruit and vegetables in the EU and third countries by 15 August.

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He said these campaigns could be launched by the autumn and will halve the usual adoption procedure normally associated with co-financed programmes, the commission said.

The announcement came on the back of a European Commission statement saying that it has approved 26 marketing programmes across 13 member states to provide information on and promote agricultural products in the EU.

The total budget for the programmes, which will run between one and three years is EUR75.1m, of which the EU will contribute 50%.

“In an increasingly open global market, it is not enough to produce excellent food and drink,” said Ciolos. “We must increase efforts to communicate the standards and quality of European agricultural products to consumers. EU programmes of this kind are an effective way of helping our producers in an increasingly competitive world.”

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