During this year’s BioFach (Nuremberg, 19-22 February 2009) IFOAM EU Group launched its Dossier on the new Organic Regulation, met with the EU Agricultural Commissioner Fischer Boel (who also spoke at the Dossier launch), organised a number of events, presentations and workshops, and held its 4th General  Assembly.

BioFach started with the IFOAM EU-organised Aquaculture Expert Group meeting, which discussed positions and actions related to the ongoing work on EU-wide organic aquaculture rules. The Group also organised and conducted workshop on the new import regime in the EU, which met EU officials (Herman van Boxem from DG Agriculture of the European Commission who presented the Import Regulation from the Commission’s perspective) and organic stakeholders (among which Beate Huber from FiBL who discussed on some harmonisation aspects of the new import regime.

Further, the IFOAM EU Group delivered a presentation of its own work to an audience curious to find out more about the EU regulatory work in organics and the IFOAM EU’s lobby work.

Another point from the agenda was the workshop on “The new Organic EU Regulation in practice: what has changed for stakeholders?” with the participation of Commission officials from DG Agri (among which Jean-Francois Hulot, Head of Unit Organic Farming who made a presentation) and IFOAM EU’s members as well as its leadership.

In addition to many other big or small, scheduled or spontaneous meetings with members and partners, IFOAM EU Group also took an active part in the workshop of the Technology Platform Organics (IFOAM EU is one of its founding members).   

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