The European Commission have found an agreement to boost the use of organic and waste-based fertilisers
Last December 12, the institutions from EU such as the European Parlamient, Council and Commision reached a political agreement on new EU rules on fertilesers proposed by the Commision in 2016 wich was based on Commision's 2015 Circular Economy Action Plan.
The main elements of the new rules are:
- Opening the Single Market for organic fertilisers: The Regulation will provide common rules on safety, quality and labelling requirements for all fertilisers to be traded freely across the EU. For that reason, the producers will need to demonstrate that their products meet those requirements before affixing the CE mark.
- Introducing limit values for toxic contaminants in certain fertilisers: the regulation intrudcues a new 60mg/kg limit for cadmium as toxic contamiant wich will be further reviewed 4 years after date of application. To encourage the use of even safer fertilisers, producers will also be able to use a low-cadmium label applicable to products with less than 20mg/kg cadmium content. This rules will be applied to all the fertilisers that choose to affix CE marking.
- Maintaining optonional harmonisation: For those manufacturers who do not wish to CE-mark can choose to cumply with national standards and sell the product to other EU countries based on the principle of mutual recognition.
This political agreement is now subject to formal approval by the European Parlamient and Council. The Regulation will then be directly applicable in all Member States and will become mandatory in 2022.
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