€23 Million EU Support to Promote Agricultural Products
The European Commission has approved 20 programmes to promote agricultural products in the European Union and in third countries. The total budget of the programmes, the grand majority of which will run for a period of three years, is €46.5 million of which the EU contributes €23.3 million.
The selected programmes cover a variety of product categories, such as quality products (PDOs, PGIs and TSGs), organic products, fresh fruit and vegetables, wines, milk and milk products, flowers, processed fruit and vegetables, processed cereals and rice, egg labelling, as well as combinations of different product categories. The third countries and regions targeted are: North America, Russia, China, Middle East, South East Asia, India, Latin America, Norway, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Turkey.
The 20 programmes chosen – 12 target the internal market and 8 target third countries – were chosen from 33 projects submitted by 30 November 2013 under the information and promotion scheme, as the first wave of programme submission for year 2014. Under existing rules (Council Regulation 3/2008), the EU can assist in financing promotion and information measures on agricultural products on the EU internal market and in third countries. The total annual budget for these programmes is around €60 million. Under the recent political agreement on new promotion rules the budget will increase to €200 million by 2020. However, the new system will only apply from 2016.
