A major expansion of the European Union’s budget for promoting the sale of EU food products could be on the cards, after it was highlighted as a target for action by European agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler, who has attacked the funding of Brussels’ new budgets for publicising the food industry.
Speaking at an informal agriculture council at Biarritz, France, the commissioner said: “I believe that we should concentrate in the near future on underlining our efforts to improve quality, health and safety. However, a mere 15 million Euros will be available for such schemes – a very small sum compared to the amounts put up by our competitors on the world market, above all the United States. We should therefore work together towards increasing the budget ceiling.”
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
He wants the money to be spent under powers granted by the EU Council of Ministers last December 1999, through Council Regulation EC2702/1999 on measures to provide information on, and to promote, agricultural products in non-Community countries. Detailed rules for the programme are about to be announced by the Commission. Fischler said that it “represents an important step forward.”
Outlining a series of other initiatives that Brussels planned to take to boost the EU food industry, the commissioner revealed that “this autumn the Commission will be presenting a legal framework for the use of Genetically Modified Organisms in agriculture and food. As well as provisions on labelling and the traceability of GMOs and GMO products, this will also contain sectoral rules,” he said.
Dr Fischler added that the Commission was also going to soon update EU novel seed and novel feed rules. He added: “Finally, next year the existing novel food legislation will be brought into line with the new GMO rules.” Talking about the ongoing discussions at the WTO headquarters in Geneva over rules of origin and labelling, the commissioner warned of international resistance to EU calls for tough global rules on geographical indications for food products.
An EU paper containing these aims is to be discussed this month (September); Dr Fischler said: “We must prepare ourselves for the likelihood that many countries will not share our arguments.”
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataBy Keith Nuthall
