On 21th November 2013, the European Commission presented a draft reform of the information and promotion policy for European agricultural and food products. The proposal will now be submitted to the European Parliament and to the Council.
This reform aims to establish a comprehensive European strategy that will allow a better targeting of promotion actions and will strengthen the competitiveness of European agriculture. For this reason, the aid allocated to information and promotion initiatives will be progressively increased, from EUR 61 million in the 2013 budget to EUR 200 million in 2020.
In particular, the reform includes an increase in the number of programmes aimed at third countries and multi-country programmes, through a higher co-financing rate (60%) for these two categories.
Regarding the internal market, the priority is to overcome consumers’ lack of awareness about the merits of European agricultural products in general and products endorsed by European quality systems in particular.
Among the main changes, there will be the possibility to mention the origin of products and their brands, within certain limits; to extend eligible beneficiaries to include producer organisations and extend the range of products eligible for inclusion under European quality systems, particularly to processed agri-food products, such as, for example, pasta.
For further information, see :
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/promotion/policy/legislative-proposal/index_en.htm
