EU Council makes significant progress on the proposal for a regulation on organic farming

On Monday, 11 May the Minister for Agriculture of Latvia, Jānis Dūklavs chaired the meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels.

Organic farming

The Council discussed the proposal for a regulation on organic farming in view of a general approach. It made significant progress on a number of articles. However some member states requested more time and pointed out the need to reflect further on some sensitive issues such as controls and the presence of non-authorised substances in organic products.

The proposal is aimed at revising the existing legislation on organic production and labelling of organic products so as to remove obstacles to the development of organic production in the EU, guarantee fair competition for farmers and operators and improve consumer confidence in organic products.

Council conclusions on simplification of CAP

The Council adopted conclusions on the simplification of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Since the beginning of 2015, this issue has become one of the priorities for the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission. In recent months, the Presidency has consulted ministers and summarised their views on priority areas for simplification, based on the national experiences of implementation of the recently reformed CAP.

The President of the Council, Minister Jānis Dūklavs declared: "With these conclusions the Council reaffirms its strong commitment to make the new CAP easier to implement for all actors involved ".

Other items adopted

The Council adopted the regulation on the landing obligation for fisheries. This implements a central objective of the reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) to eliminate progressively discards in all EU fisheries through the introduction of an obligation to land all catches.

Press conference following the meeting: