On February 6th, the report of the NAT Commission (CdR) on the European Commission proposal for a Regulation on information and promotion policy for agricultural products was successfully approved. In this occasion, the rapporteur for the Committee of Region on the issue, the President of La Rioja, Pedro Sanz Alonso, mentioned and thanked AREPO for the involvement and the cooperation with the NAT Commission, from the early stages of the discussion on promotion policy.
The Secretary-General of AREPO, Laurent Gomez, invited in the discussion panel as an expert, welcomed the Commission's proposal. He acknowledged in particular the importance of the budget increase for this policy, the possibility of introducing an indication of the origin of the products and the priority given to quality products. In this regard, the Secretary-General stressed that the promotion policy will have to face the challenge of consumers’ lack of knowledge about the quality products logos. Gomez thanked the CoR rapporteur and the COMAGRI rapporteur for their significant contributions to the discussion. He underlined, in particular, the need to reintroduce the regional and national co-financing to ensure consistency with the promotion measure in Article 16 of the EAFRD. In fact, it is a key element for ensuring fair treatment to small businesses, since at the moment they are able to access to promotion measures only with the support of regional co-financing. Finally, the Secretary-General invited to reflect on the importance of innovation in communication and promotion strategies, especially in the wine sector, which is subject of debate since, according to the Commission proposal, it cannot independently access to funds for information and promotion campaigns.
