The European Commission has approved 31 programmes in 16 Member States (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom) to provide information on and to promote agricultural products in the European Union.

The total budget of the programmes running between one and three years is € 92.4 million, of which the EU will contribute half.

The selected programmes cover organic products, agricultural quality products (PDO, PGI, TSG), dairy products, meat, wine, fruit and vegetables, oil, plants and flowers and products from the Outermost Regions.

“European Union farm products are unique in their quality and diversity” said Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development. “In an open global market, we need to redouble our efforts to explain their benefits to consumers. It is not enough to produce excellent food and drink; we also need to get smart when it comes to marketing. EU programmes of this sort can really help our producers in an increasingly competitive world.”