On June 1st, AREPO participated in the meeting of the Civil Dialogue Group on Quality and Promotion.
On promotion the agenda focused on the implementation on the new Promotion Policy. The Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) debriefed the participant on the state of play of the first call for proposal and discussed the lessons learnt from the first call for applications.
CHAFEA received 199 proposal for simple programmes and 27 for multi programmes. The highest number of proposals came from Italy, followed by Greece. Competition is higher for proposal concerning dairy products and pig meat as well as for multi programme in general.
Concerning the Annual Work Programme (AWP) 2017, the Commission presented the conclusions of the macro-economic market analysis that helped defining the priorities for the next annual programme. The Commission wants to introduce a new topic for the internal market under multi programmes to promote the elements of our Common Agricultural Policy that sustain agriculture sustainability as well as the role of agriculture for climate action. Furthermore, the 10 geographical areas introduced in the AWP 2016 will be merged in 4 areas:
- China/Japan/Korea, Taiwan, SE Asia, Indian subcontinent
- USA/Canada/Mexico
- Africa, Middle East and Turkey
- Other geographical areas: (Central, south America, Caribbean; Eastern Europe and central Asia; Oceania, EFTA, neighbourhood)
On quality, the discussion focused on the preliminary findings on the possibility for further simplification in the area of quality policy, regarding in particular spirit drinks and wine regulations. Furthermore, the Commission presented an update on the implementation of voluntary origin labelling of foods.
To conclude, the Commission presented the state of the art of the proposal on official controls and its link to quality certification schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs.
