Lower chamber: No special shelves for local foodstuff in supermarkets. “Romanian” term ban pending

The Chamber’s Agriculture Committee has discussed on Wednesday the law on the sale of Romanian food products, after the EC’s infringement procedure opened against Romania on this issue. The deputies in the agriculture committee decided on amending the law by cutting off the obligation that supermarkets should install special shelves for the agrifood products made in Romania.

Currently in Romania, large retailers are required by law to purchase at least 51 percent of food and agricultural products from local producers.

The European Commission (EC) sent letter of formal notice to Romania a month ago on the grounds that the national rules on retail of agricultural and food products run against EU law. The same measure was taken against Hungary.

The MPs of the lower chamber also established to replace “the short supply chain” term with the one of “partnership” between producers and retailers, as well as the word “Romanian”.

The MPs also invited the producers’ and retailers’ representatives to attend the debate, with the final report on the law’s amendment draft to be released next week.

Thus, the committee, producers and retailers have agreed on deleting the provision compelling supermarkets to install special shelves for the Romanian products. The retailers’ representative, Florin Capatana argued the provision is not necessary, as the promotion of the Romanian products is made anyway and the supermarkets have been more and more interested in buying foodstuff made in Romania.

The short supply chain term is also to be cut out. Until now, the supermarkets were compelled to buy merchandise through the short supply chain, meaning directly and not from 2-3 suppliers. The EC asked the Romanian parliament to replace the term.

The most debatable issue was yet the one on giving up the “Romanian products” phrase. The European Commission argued in the infringement notification that the term is against competition and would restrict the free circulation of goods in the EU.

Some producers and MPs proposed to replace it by “in-house products”.

“The term doesn’t bother. All products are in-house in the EU. The Austrian cannot argue that you stop his sales,” PSD deputy Ioan Munteanu argued.

However the proposal failed to reach any consensus, with some attendees saying that by giving up the “Romanian” term the law is rendering innocuous.