`With No Deal on Olive Council’s Future, Europe Favors Treaty Extension - Olive Oil Times
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With No Deal on Olive Council’s Future, Europe Favors Treaty Extension

By Julie Butler
Aug. 4, 2014 07:30 UTC

Lack of a deal on the future of the International Olive Council (IOC) means the treaty gov­ern­ing it is likely to be pro­longed a year beyond its December 31 expiry.

The European Commission favors ask­ing the IOC Council of Members to extend the 2005 International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives to allow more time for nego­ti­a­tion, Commission doc­u­ments show.

Talks on a new deal have been con­fi­den­tial, how­ever both the Commission and its olive oil advi­sory group have flagged sup­port for new rules let­ting coun­tries that are olive oil con­sumers, but not pro­duc­ers, join the IOC.

The Commission esti­mates its con­tri­bu­tion to the IOC bud­get for the one-year exten­sion of the mul­ti­lat­eral agree­ment would be €3.8 mil­lion ($5.1m).

The Commission received a man­date from the Council of the European Union (EU) last November autho­riz­ing it to open talks on behalf of the EU – an IOC mem­ber – for the con­clu­sion of a new treaty. According to a Commission mem­o­ran­dum, it is seek­ing coun­cil autho­riza­tion to ask the IOC Council of Members for a 12-month exten­sion of the 2005 agree­ment because ​“Progress is such that it is now cer­tain that the dead­line of 31 December 2014 for the con­clu­sion of an agree­ment can­not be met.” The IOC Council of Members can pro­long the agree­ment ​“for not more than two peri­ods of up to two years each.”

The Commission said the olive oil and table olives treaty ​“fos­ters coop­er­a­tion; con­tributes to the devel­op­ment and sta­bil­ity of mar­kets; and con­tributes to the EU’s objec­tives relat­ing to trade and agri­cul­tural pol­icy.”

According to a sep­a­rate explana­tory mem­o­ran­dum by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the agree­ment ​“also con­tributes to the pro­tec­tion of con­sumers from fraud through the com­mis­sion­ing of research into lab­o­ra­tory tech­niques to detect adul­ter­ation of olive oil and through the accred­i­ta­tion and bench­mark­ing of lab­o­ra­to­ries car­ry­ing out test­ing of olive oil.”

Noting the EU is the largest pro­ducer and con­sumer of olive oil in the world, it said being a mem­ber of the IOC ​“enables the EU to pur­sue the devel­op­ment of the inter­na­tional mar­kets for olive oil and table olives and to defend its inter­ests with regard to these prod­ucts.”

Defra said the pro­posal is likely to be con­sid­ered and pos­si­bly adopted by the Council of the EU in September. The 102nd ses­sion of the IOC Council of Members is due to take place in Madrid November 10 – 13.

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