Euro Coop - Position Papers

Euro Coop Contribution To the European Commission Civil Society Dialogue On Fair Trade

EURO COOP is the European Community of Consumer Cooperatives, whose members are the national organisations of consumer cooperatives in 18 European countries. Created in 1957, EURO COOP today represents over 3,200 local and regional cooperatives, the members of which amount to more than 25 million consumers across Europe.

Euro Coop welcomes the European Commission (EC) civil society dialogue on Fair Trade as it sees it as a good opportunity to provide input in a field where it has been active for a long time. Some Euro Coop members have in fact been involved in this domain for decades now and their commitment has never failed to grow and further develop over the years. In this regard, an insight into the engagements and actions undertaken by the consumer co-operatives gathered in Euro Coop is available on our website.

Regarding the analysis of the points submitted for reflection in the discussion paper, Euro Coop considers first of all that more focus should have been given to Fair Trade as such, and not to consumer assurance schemes in general. Consumer assurance schemes encompass in fact a wide variety of options as for example ecological labelling or animal welfare and therefore every policy paper stemming from this dialogue risks loosing focus if it remains in such general terms.

This preliminary point made, each consumer assurance scheme and thus also Fair Trade is characterized by standards which are clearly defined and to which consumers can refer when making purchasing choices. In this respect, a consumer buying Fair Trade products should always be in a position to get a univocal definition of what 'Fair Trade' means and which are the standards identifying it. For Fair Trade, the main concern is in fact the abuse or misuse of the term, which leads to a proliferation of claims that do not match the corresponding principles. In this regard, it is worth noting that the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has pointed this out in its opinion on ethical trade and consumer assurance schemes by saying that "If some schemes overstate the benefit or mislead the public there will be a loss of trust affecting all."

The aspect of the potential loss of trust is also particularly important when considering that consumer understanding of the issues involved in consumer assurance schemes varies a lot and may be subject to changes in public opinion or scandals when referred to schemes based on ethics. It is therefore a very delicate matter which needs to be appropriately investigated in order to prevent abuses.

In this regard, consumer cooperatives do their best to provide their members and more widely, all consumers, with the most thorough and accurate information possible. We therefore feel that there is a need for further institutional support in order to develop the efforts made by consumer co-operatives and other civil society organisations and we also believe that the benefits generated by Fair Trade in poorer countries need to gain an official recognition at European level. We furthermore deem that lessons from Fair Trade should be integrated in European Union trade policies in order to turn them into more effective tools to fight poverty and achieve sustainable development.

Another feature to be taken into the utmost consideration when investigating a consumer assurance scheme is that it must be audited on a permanent basis by an institution or accredited and independent organisation. This impartial actor has the duty to state that the claims made correspond to the truth. As mentioned before, consumer assurance schemes are in fact based on consumer trust and every minor negligence could lead to big damages to the whole concept.

The Commission therefore needs to urgently take steps in order to put order in the plethora of proliferating ethical and sustainable trading initiatives that sometimes have no correspondence with Fair Trade as such. For example, it occurs that certain products such as coffee is labelled 'ethically blended' when in fact it contains as little as 5% Fair Trade ingredients, as MEP Linda McAvan explained in a recent speech. In this regard and beyond financial support, a clear definition of 'Fair Trade' from the part of the European Commission, based on the commonly agreed criteria by civil society organisations, would be much welcomed.

This is also necessary in order to prevent the current risk that Member States could pass mutually conflicting national legislation in this area. In fact, France, Belgium and Italy have already undertaken legislative steps in this direction and different outcomes could then be seen as an anomaly to correct from a European internal market perspective.

Against this background, we feel that a recommendation, as suggested by the European Parliament resolution on Fair Trade and development , would be an adequate tool. This instrument would in fact help clarify the concept of Fair Trade by endorsing the existing international Fair Trade standards and verification mechanisms without ending up in a regulation. These standards have been developed by the Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International (FLO) and the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) and are broadly accepted as reference points for Fair Trade standard setting. A recommendation on Fair Trade endorsing those principles would thus deliver a solution to solve the problem of misleading claims and be a first move in implementing pending EU commitments on Fair Trade1 .

As enterprises directly owned and driven by consumers, we consider that more research on the perception of consumers regarding Fair Trade is necessary and should be carried out by the European Commission. This would help the Commission services to get a deeper insight into this subject and act as a starting point for further considerations and policy developing.

As a last point to raise, Euro Coop calls for better internal coordination between European Commission services on 'Fair Trade'. Euro Coop's perception is that there does not seem to be enough connection between different ongoing initiatives within the Commission, such as for example the sustainability claims portal, run by DG Development, DG SANCO discussions on labelling, DG Employment project on social considerations in public procurement, etc. In order to achieve a coherent approach to these questions, it is therefore necessary to link up these processes and discussions.

For further information, please contact:
Rosita Zilli, Policy Adviser, Euro Coop
Tel: +32 (0)2 285 00 72
Fax: +32 (0)2 231 07 57
E-mail: Rzilliateurocoop.coop