Slovakia eyes national food quotas in the constitution
The Slovak Minister of Agriculture, Richard Takáč, wants the constitution to require retailers to stock a defined minimum proportion of Slovak food on their shelves, despite the precedents of the Czech Republic and Romania, who were forced to abandon similar initiatives following a legal spat with the European Commission.
The Agriculture Minister has been discussing the need to increase the share of Slovak food on store shelves since taking office in October 2023. He recently signalled that he could achieve this by changing the constitution.
“I have information that there are EU countries that have a percentage of the sale of domestic products in retail chains defined in the constitution,” said Takáč, who is primarily bothered by the absence of Slovak food in foreign supermarket chains.
Euractiv Slovakia asked the ministry which countries Takáč was pointing at and whether a proposal to establish a mandatory share of Slovak food on store shelves is being prepared. The ministry had not responded.
Martin Krajčovič, chairman of the Slovak Modern Trade Alliance (SAMO), dismissed the idea in comments for Euractiv Slovakia.
“To our knowledge, there is no country in the EU that has a constitutionally defined mandatory share of products according to their origin.”
Krajčovič argued that setting quotas violates single market rules and is also a significant barrier to freedom of establishment. It would also jeopardise food availability, he added.
The precedents
The European treaties guarantee the free movement of food products in the EU single market. Mandatory quotas for food produced by domestic farmers or food producers inevitably discredit producers from other EU countries.
There have been several cases when the EU Commission halted a member state that tried to introduce food quotas, most recently, Czechia and Romania.
The Czech Parliament passed an amendment to the Food Act in 2021, which required large supermarkets to stock at least 55% of domestic food on their shelves. The Commission warned them against this step and threatened a lawsuit at the EU Court of Justice, prompting Prague to scrap the idea.
Meanwhile, between 2017 and 2020, large supermarket chains in Romania were obliged to offer at least 51% of domestic food. As soon as the law came into force, the Commission launched legal proceedings against the country. Following the Czech example, Romania ultimately backed down.
(Natália Silenská, Marián Koreň | Euractiv.sk)
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