Brussels, Belgium
July 6, 2009
The EU’s food industry is not
excluded from today’s economic downturn. To give this important
industry sector fresh impetus, European Commission Vice
President Günter Verheugen and Commissioners Mariann Fischer
Boel and Meglena Kuneva, today discussed with stakeholders the
follow up to the recommendations of the High level Group, which
were issued on 17 th March 2009.
Vice President Verheugen and
Commissioners Fischer Boel and Kuneva said:
" We call upon industry and national authorities to help
implement recommendations which should lead to a more
competitive agro food sector for the benefit of consumers,
farmers and the industry recommendations which should help
promote high quality food for European citizens."
Today's stakeholder meeting agreed on a
Roadmap of Key Initiatives that engages the European
Commission, the participating Member States and the stakeholders
to implement in the near future coordinated actions, such as:
-
improvement of the transparency of the fixing of
prices and contractual arrangements
along the food supply chain;
-
establishing a market surveillance
mechanism of counterfeiting;
-
a
SWOT analysis (Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) to assess the
position of the European agro-food industry in the global
market.
-
simplification of the administrative
procedures, particularly for SMEs, for participation
in research funding programmes;
-
setting up a social dialogue in
the agro-food industry;
-
developing educational programmes
which raise awareness of the importance of the agro-food
industry;
-
setting up a European Forum to discuss
the improvement of commercial relations among the players of
the food chain, with the aim to adopt an EU wide code
of conduct;
-
launching a study on the effects of
retailers' own brands on the competitiveness of the
agro-food industry, in particular on Small and Medium-Sized
Enterprises (SMEs);
-
promotion of the instruments available
for SMEs, e.g. Enterprise Europe Network;
Background
The
High Level Group on the Competitiveness of the Agro-Food
Industry Group brought together Member States as well as senior
policy makers from the agro-food industry, civil society and
professional associations. Their task was to identify and
address issues that determine the competitiveness of the
European agro-food industry and to formulate a set of
recommendations to achieve predictable and stable framework
conditions for the years to come.
The
food and drink industry is one of Europe’s most important and
dynamic industrial sectors. It is made up of about 280 000
companies, over 90% of which are SMEs, and provides jobs for 4
million people. The European food industry is our number one
industry in terms of turnover (around 800 € billion).
The Recommendations, the Report and the
Roadmap of Key Initiatives |
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