Council adopts position on digital labelling in the fertilisers sector

The Council has today adopted its position (‘negotiating mandate’) on the proposed regulation on digital labelling of EU fertilising products.

This proposal, which amends regulation (EU) 2019/1009, aims to improve the readability of labels, leading to a more efficient use of fertilising products, and to simplify the labelling obligations for suppliers while reducing costs for the industry.

While the Council’s position shares the main objectives of the amended regulation, it introduces several improvements in an attempt to strike the right balance between moving towards the digitalisation of labels for economic operators and the prevention of potential information problems for end-users, taking into consideration digital skills and connectivity limitations that some farmers may face.

This regulation reinforces the digitalisation of the fertilisers’ sector. The new rules will cut red tape and costs for producers and give clear and consumer-friendly information to farmers when they purchase the products they need.

Héctor Gómez Hernández, acting Spanish Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism

Commission proposal

Labelling of fertilisers is currently regulated by regulation (EU) 2019/1009. The revision of this legislation proposes allowing suppliers of fertilising products to communicate labelling information in a physical format, a digital format, or a combination of the two. The Commission’s text proposes that a digital-only format will be allowed when the EU fertilising products are sold without packaging or when the products are sold to economic operators who are not end-users of the products.

Farmers and other consumers of fertilising products sold in packaging would continue to benefit from both digital and physical labels for the most important information (i.e. health and environmental protection, agronomic efficiency or contents). The Commission’s proposal prescribes the content and the technological requirements for digital labels. The economic operators would have to ensure that the digital label will be searchable, accessible, free of charge and capable of meeting the needs of vulnerable groups. The Commission would be empowered to update the general digital labelling requirements through implementing acts.

Council mandate

The Council’s mandate clarifies the obligation to provide a physical label for products intended for end-users, whether they are sold with or without packaging.  

The requirements for digital labels have been streamlined to avoid excessive administrative burden. For instance, the quantity of the product, which changes frequently, has been made a non-mandatory element of the digital label to avoid a new digital label having to be generated during each transaction if the volume of the product changes. Likewise, the production date of the product has been retained as a non-mandatory element of the digital label if it is already stated in the physical label.

To ensure better traceability and to level the playing field with local distributors, the Council mandate adds importer information as a mandatory element of digital labels.

To align with the Council’s position on the Chemicals Labelling and Packaging regulation, the mandate introduces a clarification to make it clear that the requirement upon economic operators to provide, upon request by end-users, the information included in the digital label by alternative means and free of charge applies independently of a purchase.

The negotiating mandate introduces a requirement to post physical labels in a visible place at the point of sale to ensure that end-users and market surveillance authorities have access to the information not provided in the digital label. This would allow potential buyers to consult the data needed to make an informed decision regardless of their digital skills or access to the internet, while providing distributors with a simple way to comply with the obligation to provide this information to their customers.

The Council position makes sure that labels will continue to include the relevant information for assessing the agronomic efficiency of the fertiliser and for selecting the right product at the time of purchase. Therefore, some elements which, in the Commission’s original proposal, had been moved to the digital label, have been moved back to the physical format. This includes, among other information, the soluble content of the nutrients in fertilisers.

Next steps

The negotiating mandate agreed today formalises the Council’s negotiating position. It provides the Council presidency with a mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament, which will start as soon as the Parliament adopts its position.

Background

In the EU, digital labelling is already used for some products containing chemicals, for instance batteries, and rules for digital labelling are under consideration for other products, like detergents, cosmetics and chemicals. The simplification of labelling obligations is expected to reduce annual costs by, on average, €57 000 for a large company and €4 500 for an SME.

Up until now, regulation (EU) 2019/1009 has governed the requirements for the labelling of fertilisers. The Commission’s proposal, published on 27 February 2023, aims to improve the readability of labels, introducing the possibility to provide labelling information in a digital format.