EU: Still shortcomings in eco-control system

The EU Court of Auditors has examined the eco-control system. Imports and cross-border cooperation are particularly problematic.

This is going well:

• There has been some improvement since the last report of the EU auditors in 2012. Especially within the EU, controls have improved.

This is going badly:

• Traceability from stores to the field is working poorly.
• Cross-border cooperation still takes too long.
• The Commission lags behind in monitoring inspection bodies operating outside the EU.
• In some EU countries, such as Bulgaria, there is still much to be done.

Organic all the way to the fields? Maybe!

To test traceability, the inspectors selected 105 products and invited the competent authorities in 18 Member States and the Commission to trace these products back to the producer. They were also asked to submit the organic certificates for all operators involved. If all participants came from one Member State, this worked in 83% of the cases. But that also means that even in these simple cases it was not possible to trace every sixth product back to the producer. If the participants came from different EU states, the success rate was 71%. As soon as the EU borders were crossed, traceability only worked in 58% of the cases.

The reasons given by the auditors are the complexity of the supply chains, the different databases in which certificates are stored and "a lack of coordination between certain competent authorities". In some cases, the traceability took more than three months. "The ability to act in the event of infringements and to prevent the products concerned from reaching the consumer is hampered by slow traceability," the auditors noted.

8 pages control report for an entire Group

One test they particularly highlighted in their report. “The certificate of the main contractor in Turkey referred to 10 production plants and 15 processing plants in Turkey, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.” The auditors requested the most recent inspection report for this company with all its plants from the inspection body. They received an eight-page report in which "basic information was missing, such as the dates of visits to the various plants and the type of checks actually carried out in each plant". The conclusion: There is "little assurance that all production and processing establishments were adequately inspected".

"Immediately" lasts 38 days.

"Although the exchange of information has improved, it could be faster and more comprehensive," the auditors write. Following its criticism in 2012, in 2013 the Commission obliged all control bodies to inform the competent authorities "without delay" of cases of non-compliance. Similarly, Member States should immediately enter any irregularities that have come to light that could affect other countries into the EU OFIS database. During their inspections in Member States, the auditors found that in Bulgaria some inspection bodies informed the competent authority of certain infringements "only in the framework of their annual reporting" - and that the authority did not notice this at all. In the Czech Republic, in 2017, the inspection bodies needed an average of 55 days to report an infringement to the authority. Until the competent authority of a Member State entered the reported non-compliance in OFIS, an average of 38 days passed in the EU. The result: "In the meantime, products from the same batch can continue to be marketed in the EU as organic".

Lack of control of control bodies

In 2018, 114 countries imported organic products into the EU. In terms of volume, China was ahead of the banana countries Ecuador and Dominican Republic. Ukraine, Moldova and Kazakhstan supplied large quantities of grain and animal feed. 13% of these imports come from a dozen countries whose organic systems the EU recognises as equivalent, such as Switzerland or the USA. 87% of these imports are certified by 57 inspection bodies that have been specifically recognised by the EU for this purpose. Some of these inspection bodies operate in up to 50 countries. In 2013, the Commission started to audit these inspection bodies. By the end of 2018, the Commission had carried out 25 audits covering 17 of the 57 control bodies. This revealed clear weaknesses time and again.

The Commission “sometimes needs a long time to remedy the weaknesses in the various control bodies operating in a country”, the auditors write. Thereby, the problems identified would "underline the need for thorough and regular monitoring of the recognised control bodies". This is also reflected in the fact that the Commission has so far withdrawn recognition from seven control bodies, despite inadequate controls.

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