Isabel García Tejerina defends organic product control uniformity in European Union

Isabel García Tejerina is attending the Council of EU Agriculture and Fisheries Ministers being held on Monday in Brussels, which seeks to finalise an agreement on the new rules governing organic farming.

Requirements for organic farming

In this regard, the Spanish minister explained that the main topic of debate is focused on the presence in organic products of residue from unauthorised substances. According to Isabel García Tejerina, Spain defends the need "to further harmonise how we control, assess and decide" when a product should be declassified as organic due to the presence of unauthorised substances.

"Spain, as an important exporter country of organic products, is asking for stronger guarantees, especially on uniformity of control and the manner in which this is decided upon at an EU level", she said.

Furthermore, Isabel García Tejerina said that Monday's meeting will study the requirements to be demanded of imported organic products. In this regard, "we believe the same requirements should be applied to them as those applied to European producers", stressed the Spanish minister, who explained that their production systems are currently being standardised "but we want to move towards the same requirements as imposed on us by the European Union".

Although Spain is mainly a producer and exporter country, and this issue does not strongly affect the country, the Spanish minister insisted that she will defend the establishment of the same requirements "as a matter of principle and for the protection of consumers and the interests of Spanish producers".

At any event, the minister said that the Spanish position will be "relatively flexible because we want these regulations to go ahead". In fact, Spain has the largest surface area given over to organic farming in the European Union "and we believe it is important for progress to be made". The Spanish minister is convinced that "we will find a satisfactory balance for all 28 Member States".

Beekeeping potential

Isabel García Tejerina also expressed agreement in favour of establishing a World Bee Day. In this regard, the Spanish minister said that Spain is the leading beekeeping country in the European Union.

She went on to say that bees are highly important because of both their socio-economic significance and their contribution to maintaining biodiversity, "meaning that everyone is committed to protecting this species".