Omnibus X: Brussels Bets It Can Cut Farm Red Tape Without Touching Food Safety

The Council has now set its full negotiating position on the food and feed safety simplification package, known in Brussels shorthand as Omnibus X. The mandate, agreed on 30 September, covers the regulation on maximum residue levels, the plant protection products regulation and the biocidal products regulation, completing a stance that earlier took in sustainable pesticide use, farm animal record-keeping and plastics used in the food industry. The European Council's latest conclusions on competitiveness took note of the position and folded it into the 'One Europe, One Market' roadmap, with leaders urging co-legislators to close the file by the end of the year. Ireland's Minister of State Thomas Byrne framed it as 'less red tape and no compromise on food safety or environmental protection'.

The package is a study in giving with one hand and taking with the other. On the strict side, the Council wants pesticide residue limits for the most hazardous substances lowered to technical zero, and it would extend that rule to substances threatening honeybees and groundwater, hitting imports and domestic produce alike, with transitional provisions so compliant goods already on the market are not wasted. On the generous side, biocontrol substances would get a fast-track approval route, low-risk active substances would receive approvals without a fixed end date, and standard approvals would run 15 years at first and 25 on renewal. Test data protection stretches from 10 to 13 years, and to 15 for low-risk products, with a single EU-level database for test reports.

For the agrifood sector the calculus is concrete: longer approval horizons and quicker routes for biological products widen the toolbox for growers, from Bordeaux vineyards to grain producers, while tighter residue limits raise the bar for imported fruit and grain competing with EU harvests. The Commission pitched the package as stripping out rules stakeholders and authorities flagged as particularly burdensome, spanning plant protection, biocides, feed, official controls and animal health and welfare. Critics will watch whether 'simplification' quietly becomes deregulation; supporters counter that predictability is precisely what farmers need to invest.

Trilogues with the European Parliament come next, under an ambitious end-of-year deadline that the Irish Presidency has publicly committed to pursue. Parliament's own position will determine how much of the Council's balance survives, particularly on technical-zero residue limits and unlimited approvals for low-risk substances. The file is now one of the scoreboard items for the December European Council, alongside the 28th regime, the Industrial Accelerator Act and the grids package.