Retailers surprised at Commission preempting consultation on supply chain

(content provided by EuroCommerce) EuroCommerce Director-General Christian Verschueren has expressed his surprise that the European Commission decided to announce a decision to move ahead with legislation on the food supply chain.

“Jumping the gun”

Reacting to the announcement in the Commission work programme for 2018 on legislation on practices in the supply chain, Verschueren said today: “A stakeholder consultation due to feed into an Impact Assessment is currently seeking views on exactly this point until mid-November. This is surely jumping the gun on an important issue where hitherto the Commission has failed to produce any concrete evidence of a problem or how EU legislation can help any farmer improve his income.”

As EuroCommerce has pointed out in the past, retailers buy less than 5% of what they sell from farmers direct. Thus there is a danger that EU legislation will be no more than gesture politics and end up with consumers footing the bill