EC to co-fund 75 agri-food promotions

The European Commission has announced the selection of 75 co-funded campaigns that will ”highlight the best of EU’s agricultural products”, both within the bloc and globally, in line with its promotion policy.

The newly selected promotion campaigns will receive €142.6mn in EU funding by the end of 2024. 

Some 162 campaign proposals were put forward, encompassing a range of topics including organic products, fresh produce, and EU quality certification schemes.

Following independent expert evaluations the EC decided to co-fund 75 campaigns, of which 58 are so-called ‘simple’ programmes implemented by one or more organisations from the same EU country, and 17 are ’Multi’ programmes implemented by at least two national organisations from at least two Member States, or by one or more European organisations. 

The selected proposals are designed to enhance the competitiveness of the EU agri-food sector, while aligning with the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork strategy.

Additionally, the campaigns will be implemented in line with the EU’s organic action plan and the ‘End the cage age’ citizens’ initiative, ensuring adherence to strict safety and quality standards.

The EU’s co-financing will amount to €94mn for the simple campaigns, with more than half of these focused on non-EU countries such as China, Japan, Canada.

The financing of Simple programmes is implemented by the member states under shared management.

Multi programmes will be co-financed with €48.6mn, the EC stated.

Successful applicants come from 13 Member States. The accepted applications will focus both on the internal and non-EU markets, with 59 per cent of the budget dedicated to EU countries which include Germany, France and Spain.

The financing of Multi programmes is implemented by the European Research Executive Agency (REA) on behalf of the European Commission.

The selected campaigns will start to sign their grant agreements in December 2024, kick-starting their activity as of January 2025.