“Quality finds its own place in the CAP reform proposal made by the Committee on agriculture of the EU Parliament. PDOs and PGIs, which were absent from the Commission Legislative proposals, are now endowed with new relevant tools” maintains AREPO’s President, Mr Tiberio Rabboni, Minister of agriculture of the Emilia-Romagna Region.
Among the main novelties is the possibility to manage production volumes, already in place for milk products with a European quality certification, is extended to all of the PDOs and PGIs. It is an important result, for which our association and notably the producers on our territories advocated strongly.
Important news also concern the CAP’s second pillar: support for quality schemes will be available for producers’ groups and organizations and will also cover information and promotion activities. Bureaucracy is reduced by the introduction of the possibility to introduce a single application for a 5 years period and PDO and PGI producers’ groups have the priority on the group creation support measures. Although no specific sub-programme is created for quality products, Member States are given the possibility to offer the sub-programmes that they consider more relevant.
“AREPO congratulates the MEPs of the Agriculture committee of the EP and its President, Mr Paolo De Castro for the excellent work done in favour of quality in Europe” – continues Rabboni – “and it hopes that these important measures will be kept after the vote in Plenary and throughout the trilogue negotiations”.
