Subject files - Fertilising Products Regulation - Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

The Commission adopted its legislative proposal on 17 March 2016. Within Parliament, competence for the file was contested, with a solution reached whereby IMCO led, but the ENVI Committee had exclusive competence for certain issues, including the levels of contaminants permitted to be present in fertilising products, and the AGRI Committee had shared competence for parts of the annexes to the proposal.

IMCO reached a position on 13 July 2017, which was then challenged in plenary, where Parliament's negotiating position was changed in certain respects, including in relation to cadmium limits. The plenary mandate was adopted on 24 October 2017, and Coreper adopted its negotiating position on 12 December 2017.

After intensive interinstitutional negotiations, a deal was struck with the Austrian Presidency at the fourth informal trilogue on 20 November 2018. The deal set cadmium limits at a level high enough to be acceptable to all actors, while allowing those Member States which wished to to maintain lower limits. It allowed for the market in fertilising products to be opened to new and innovative products, such as fertilisers made from organic or recycled materials. The deal was approved with a large majority by the IMCO Committee on 22 January 2019, and adopted, again with a large majority, in plenary on 27 March 2019.