PURPOSE: to postpone until 1 July 2010 the compulsory use of the EU logo in Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 on organic production and labelling of organic products.
PROPOSED ACT: Council Regulation.
CONTENT: Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 on organic production and labelling of organic products will apply as of 1 January 2009. Under Article 24(1)(b) of the Regulation, it will be compulsory to use an EU logo on pre-packaged organic products from that date. Before that date, the use of a Community logo is optional.
The purpose of this proposal is to postpone the compulsory use of the EU logo pending the design of a new logo.
This delay shall help to avoid:
- the confusion of consumers by changing EU logos within a short time period and
- the creation of additional financial burden for operators, who would have to change their packaging and print-outs within a very short time frame.
The design of a new EU logo is necessary since it turned out that the current EU logo for organic products according to Annex V of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 is easily confusable with other logos, like the EU logos for quality production (PDIs, PGOs and TSGs) pursuant to Commission Regulations (EC) No 1898/2006 and (EC) No 1216/2007.
It is important for the perception of consumers to ensure an informative labelling with a distinctive and appealing EU logo, which represents the organic production and clearly identifies the products.
To gain a broad acceptance of the new EU logo, it should be drawn up by including the public in the design procedure. This will be carried out by a public contest during the promotion campaign for the organic farming which will be launched in July 2008.
This campaign is scheduled for a period of three years and this timeframe can be used for the organisation of the public web-contest at European level and subsequent decision making process. This implies postponing the compulsory use of the EU logo until mid-2010.
Accordingly, an additional paragraph is added in Article 42 of Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 stipulating that Article 24(1)(b) and (c) of the Regulation will apply as of 1 July 2010.