The 2015 AREPO General Meeting took place on March 25th at the shared headquarters of Regions Hessen, Emilia-Romagna and Aquitaine in Brussels.
Our assembly was chaired for the first time by our new president, Vincent Labarthe, vice-president of the Regional Council of Midi-Pyrénées in charge of agriculture, elected 5 months ago.
The president started this meeting thanking directors of the Hessen, Emilia-Romagna and Aquitaine offices who allowed us to host this General Assembly and the AREPO and AREFLH common event within their premises.
Then, he thanked all AREPO members for his election to the presidency in October 2014 and continued with his annual Report, speaking especially of the “civil dialogue groups” set up by the European Commission in which AREPO is participating.
AREPO is included in three of these groups: CDG “Rural development”, CDG “Organic farming” and CDG “quality and promotion”.
For the CDG “rural development”, AREPO will work especially on measures 3.1. and 3.2., which are dedicated to quality systems.
For the CDG “quality and promotion”, we will work on international protection of geographical indications and on the labelling of origins of raw materials for foodstuff. We will also work on the simplification of regulations on wines, spirits and quality products to introduce further improvements, especially regarding deadlines of the registration process.
Finally, for the CDG “organic farming”, AREPO will mainly work on the reform of the organic farming regulation and on its delegated acts.
Laurent Gomez, AREPO’s Secretary-General, presented the 2014 financial accounts and members regions were asked to vote for the 2015 contribution.
Other points of the agenda were the AREPO participation in European projects under Horizon 2020, organic farming regulation and the promotion policy of the European Union.
AREPO GA was followed by the AREPO and AREFLH European common event on fruit, vegetables and quality products, which was divided into two parts: a conference in the afternoon and a presentation/tasting of quality products of our regions in the evening.
