Directive (EU) 2019/633 on unfair trading practices in the agri-food chain

Since the action of the CAP began to become progressively less incisive, leaving farmers more and more exposed to the dynamics of an increasingly global and increasingly less assisted market, the problem of their adequate economic and contractual protection began to manifest itself with increasing evidence. The recent adoption of the EU directive 2019/633 of 17 April 2019, on unfair trading practices in business to business relationships in agricultural and food supply chain, is part of this context. It has been approved at a very short distance from the presentation of the relative proposal by the Commission, as proof of the importance that the issues addressed therein have for the sector. The purpose of the directive is to create a harmonized body of legislation on the protection of agricultural and food businesses from abuses by the contractual counterpart. The harmonization proposed appears, moreover, to be of a minimalist nature, leaving the Member States free to be able to implement and strengthen the subject by strengthening - or maintaining, if already existing - the safeguards for the part that undergoes the unfair behavior, on whose first examination there is will linger in the report. On these premises, the work aims at analisyse the new Directive, highliting its weakness and inadeguacy in respect of the objectives pursued.