Commissie ondersteunt promotie van Europese landbouwproducten (en)

The European Commission has approved 31 programmes in 16 Member States (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom) to provide information on and to promote agricultural products in the European Union. The total budget of the programmes running between one and three years is € 92.4 million, of which the EU will contribute half. The selected programmes cover organic products, agricultural quality products (PDO, PGI, TSG), dairy products, meat, wine, fruit and vegetables, oil, plants and flowers and products from the Outermost Regions.

“European Union farm products are unique in their quality and diversity” said Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development. “In an open global market, we need to redouble our efforts to explain their benefits to consumers. It is not enough to produce excellent food and drink; we also need to get smart when it comes to marketing. EU programmes of this sort can really help our producers in an increasingly competitive world.”

Background

On 19 December 2000 the Council decided^[1] that the EU could assist in financing measures that provide information on, or promote agricultural products and food on the EU Internal market, These measures can consist of public relations, promotional or publicity actions, in particular highlighting the advantages of EU products, especially in terms of quality, hygiene, food safety, nutrition, labelling, animal welfare or environment-friendliness of their production, The measures can also cover participation at events and fairs, information campaigns on the EU system of protected designations of origin (PDO), protected geographical indications (PGI) and traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG), information on EU quality and labelling systems and organic farming, Information campaigns on the EU system of quality wines produced in specified regions (QWPSR) are also amongst the possibilities, The EU finances 50% of the cost of these measures, the remainder being met by the professional/inter-branch organisations which proposed them and/or by the Member States concerned.

The detailed rules for applying the promotion and information measures are laid down by a Commission Regulation^[2], It lists the themes and products that can be covered by the promotion measures.

Each year, by 30 November, interested professional organisations can submit their proposals to the Member States, These then have to send the Commission the list of programmes they have selected and a copy of each programme, Subsequently the Commission evaluates the programmes and decides on their eligibility,

The full list of programmes and budgets adopted today is available in annex.

ANNEX