EU Organic Regulation update

The review of the EU Organic Regulation has been going on for a very long time. The process of agreeing a framework text is not yet complete and work on the all-important production rules has not yet begun.

The Commission made their proposal for a new regulation in March 2014. At that time, the organic movement expressed reservations about the draft text. Our view was in agreement with an independent review of the current legislative framework, which was carried out on behalf of the EU Commission. This review: "[1] Evaluation of the EU Legislation on Organic Farming – Study Report (2013)" concluded that the current legislation was sound and that any issues could be addressed through step-by-step improvements, rather than a new regulation.

Any announcement suggesting the text has been adopted successfully is presumptuous, because a further vote in Plenary will be required for the text to be fully ‘adopted’. There is still a long way to go to decide on a complete package that is ready to be implemented in January 2021.

While we acknowledge that many of the most problematic aspects of the original proposal have been dealt with in the compromise text, we are clear that the proposals are not what we would look for if starting with a blank piece of paper. The sector will need to undertake a huge amount of work to support the development of implementing rules to address and improve on the underlying compromises in the framework text.