Opinion on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EEC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 on organic production of agricultural products and indications referring thereto on agricultural products and foodstuffs (1) (94/C 148/08)

On 13 December 1993, the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under Articles 43 and 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the abovementioned proposal.

The Section for Agriculture and Fisheries, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its Opinion on 3 March 1994. The Rapporteur was Mr Gardner.

At its 314th Plenary Session of 23 and 24 March 1994 (meeting of 24 March), the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following Opinion by a large majority with five votes against and three abstentions.

1. General comments

This proposal includes a number of changes among them:

- further postponement of regulations for organic animal products,

- applying the Labelling Directive,

- facilitating the marketing of mixtures with non-organic food,

- regulating seeds and reproductive material,

- increasing the number of pesticides permitted at Community level.

The Committee agrees with parts of the proposal but others are only acceptable if changed as shown below.

2. Detailed comments

2.1. Article 1.1

This postpones a proposal for organic animal products for a further three years without sufficient reason being given.

That is unacceptable as it is urgent to bring order into the organic animal products sector. As an example, 'organic honey' is widely on sale in the Community without any method of ensuring that the bees do not feed on normal crops or without specifying processing techniques.

Also there is considerable trade in products containing both animal and plant products such as baked goods and 'bio fruit yoghurt' where national laws can contradict each other.

A delay to the end of this year is the maximum that is acceptable since there is a further considerable time lag from proposal to regulation.

Article 1.1. therefore should be changed to:

'In Article 1(2) the date of 1 July 1992 is replaced by 1 November 1994.'

2.2. Article 1.4

There is a need for a clear definition of the word 'product' which is currently used in the proposal for:

- foods,

- unprocessed agricultural raw materials and/or ingredients and also for

- agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and plant protection products.

2.3. Article 1.4

Under the Labelling Directive 79/112/EEC, additives are not declared if they are present but no longer fulfil a technological function in the food. Equally, flavour solvents and processing aids are not declared.

Though there are only a few such cases, since the consumer believes organic products contain no additives etc., all these should be declared if present.

Therefore the existing definition of 'ingredient' should be retained.

2.4. Article 1.5

This deals with labelling. Two points arise:

2.4.1. Commission Regulation 207/93 exempts organic wine from restrictions on additives etc. leaving these to national rules, if any. This was of course done without consulting the Committee or the European Parliament.

The Committee does not want to comment here on the labelling rules for regular wine. However for organic wine a published EC list of additives and full ingredient declaration is needed to avoid misleading the consumer.

Provision therefore must be made in this proposal (or urgently by a separate one) for a permitted list of additives in organic wines (including sulphur dioxide) and to apply the normal ingredient listing of the Labelling Directive to organic wine.

2.4.2. Directive 79/112/EEC exempts non-prepacked foods from the requirement for ingredient lists etc. and in Article 12 leaves it open to Member States to adopt rules for informing the consumer.

Given the consumer perception of organic products, the Commission should require Member States to provide such information to the consumer where organic products are sold with additives or in mixtures with non-organic ingredients. This could be done by notices at the point of sale as is currently required by some Member States for some foods which are not pre-packed.

2.5. Article 1.9

This modifies Article 5(4) of the base regulation which allows 5 % regular agricultural products to be mixed with organic ones if there is insufficient quantity of organic material produced in the Community. These products are listed in Section C of Annex VI.

The Committee needs to make two points:

a) The list was established by a Commission Regulation and has never been examined by the Committee and the European Parliament. It contains products like coconut and brazil nuts which is reasonable. However it also contains sugar, vegetable fats, gluten etc. thus giving a disincentive to Community producers to make these organic products since they are of course more expensive than regular ones. Further it contains products like honey and milk powder for which there is still no organic standard. This list therefore should be revised, preferably by a Council amendment, so as to give input from the Committee and the European Parliament.

b) For such products where this provision is really essential, it should also apply to items which are produced in insufficient quality or availability in the Community.

2.6. Article 1.11 (b)

At present food with:

1. > 95 % organic ingredients may be called 'organic product'.

2. 50-95 % organic ingredients may only show the 'organic' part in the ingredient list.

This article introduces a new category of:

3. 70-95 % organic ingredients coupled with the permission to declare 'organic' with the same prominence as sales description.

This is a very complex set of rules which is incomprehensible to the ordinary consumer and is also likely to give rise to differing interpretations. It would be better to keep to the present cut-off of 50 %.

To avoid confusing the consumer all the mixed products in 2 and 3 should be clearly and prominently labelled with the ' % organic ingredients'.

This would best be done under the general 'Quantitative Ingredient Declaration' for all food which is currently being processed by the Council [COM(91) 536 final - CES 1164/92].

2.7. Article 1.16

These allow non-organic seeds and vegetative reproductive material to be used at the option of individual States.

The meaning of 'vegetative reproductive material' is not clear and needs defining and the text changed to read:

'seeds and vegetative reproductive material other than seedlings.'

Without such a change, seedlings could be started by conventional method and then planted out into organic plots and the result called 'organic'.

Aside from that, this Article will introduce differences according to Member State and lead to a great deal of bureaucracy, as well as tending to drive organic production to the state or region with the most liberal rules.

The Committee therefore does not approve this Article.

2.8. Article 1.17

At present there is a very limited list of permitted pesticides and these must not:

a) come into direct contact with the food

b) leave any pesticide residues.

This Article proposes to abolish both these safeguards for these further pesticides. It does not do so on any objective criteria but merely because these pesticides have been in use somewhere in the EU for organic farming.

This is both misleading to the consumer who believes organic food does not contain pesticide residues and makes enforcement by the competent authorities in the receiving Member State impossible. An example of such products is copper oxychloride. Enforcement authorities will not be able to see whether copper residues in an organic product are due to authorized uses or not.

This change is not acceptable and goes against the whole rationale of organic food.

2.9. Article 1.22

There is an increasing trade in products which are presented in ways that can confuse the consumer with genuine organic ones.

Article 10 of the base Regulation defines labelling rules and a Community Indicator (that products are covered by the organic inspection scheme) and Symbol. Both were to be optional in the first instance. The Commission was supposed to review this optionality by July 1993. No such review has ever been published.

However, given the present competitive situation, the Commission should decide forthwith to make this indication and symbol compulsory for all methods of marketing these products.

This would also serve to define the field of application of the Draft Regulation by making it clear that only products bearing the mark of the inspection body are actually 'products' within the meaning of the Regulation.

2.10. Article 1.22 1(b)

This says that imported organic products may not carry the symbol. This is not acceptable for products or part of products which have been certified as having been through an inspection process recognized as equivalent to the Community inspection by the procedure in EEC 2083/92.

This paragraph must be amended accordingly.

2.11. Articles 1.27 and 1.28

These introduce further powers for Commission Regulations. Given the experience of the present powers (see 2.4.1 and 2.8) the Committee is not in favour of this extension.

Furthermore, given the amount of delegated legislation, the Commission should institute an Advisory Committee on the lines of the Advisory Committee for Food so that the parties concerned can make their input into Commission Regulations.

Done at Brussels, 24 March 1994.

The Chairman

of the Economic and Social Committee

Susanne TIEMANN

(1) OJ No C 326, 3. 12. 1993, p. 8.