Join over 30,000 people supporting the Make Fruit Fair petition

The petition that was launched in June by the Make Fruit Fair! project – a global consortium of 19 partners including the Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) from the European Union, Cameroon, Colombia, Ecuador and the Windward Islands – coordinated by Oxfam Germany– has already won the support of over 30,000 signers. The petition is calling on EU Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska to support EU-wide stronger, binding rules that stop unfair trading practices and enable small farmers, workers and EU consumers to get a fair deal.

The window of opportunity for stricter regulation is now open and every signature counts, so:

Click here to sign the petition

make fruit fair

 

A handful of powerful supermarket chains dominate the highly concentrated European retail market and hence are the gatekeepers between European consumers and suppliers from around the world who want to sell to the European market. Together with the food industry they abuse their enormous buyer power by squeezing suppliers to keep costs extremely low and by offloading their risks onto weaker business partners. Faced with these unfair trading practices, suppliers and farmers from the EU and overseas are often intimidated into operating in a “climate of fear” with little choice but to meet buyers’ demands.

The EU acknowledges the widespread nature of unfair trading practices. The European Commission defines them as “practices that grossly deviate from good commercial conduct, are contrary to good faith and fair dealing and are unilaterally imposed by one trading partner on another”. Nevertheless so far it has failed to introduce binding rules to prevent them. The Commission has opted for an assessment phase instead. Supermarkets continue to advocate for voluntary measures which will not deliver fair treatment along the supply chain. The petition is asking for credible, EU-wide enforcement against these unfair trade.

The assessment phase of unfair trading practices ends at the beginning of 2016, when Commissioner Bieńkowska will decide whether or not to propose stronger regulations. The Commission needs to tackle unfair trading practices in supply chains through the introduction of binding and enforceable regulation, not by supporting voluntary initiatives.