Madrid: Farmers across the European Union gained a stronger legal hand this week after the Council gave its final green light on 29 June 2026 to new rules tightening enforcement of unfair trading practices in the agri-food supply chain. The regulation, adopted by the European Parliament on 12 February, targets the cross-border deals where a supplier in one member state sells to a powerful buyer in another and struggles to seek redress.

Closing the cross-border gap

The core of the new law is cooperation between national enforcement authorities. Where a farmer in Spain supplies a retailer headquartered in Germany, regulators in both countries must now share information, coordinate investigations and align penalties rather than passing the case between jurisdictions.

• National authorities must assist each other and exchange evidence on request
• A coordinated-action mechanism triggers when abuses span at least three member states
• A designated coordinator steers the joint response in large cross-border cases

Why it matters for producers

Late payments, last-minute order cancellations and unilateral contract changes have long squeezed producers who lack the bargaining power of supermarket chains and processors. By making enforcement portable across borders, the rules aim to stop the largest buyers from using national frontiers as a shield.

“A farmer should not lose a legitimate complaint simply because the buyer sits on the other side of a border,” one agriculture ministry official said, welcoming the coordinated approach.

A bigger fight still to come

The cross-border rules are only one front. In its 2026 work programme, the Commission signalled a broader revision of the unfair trading practices framework in the third quarter of the year, floating the principle that farmers should not be forced to sell systematically below their production costs. That idea, fiercely resisted by parts of the retail sector, promises a harder political battle than the enforcement update just approved.

Background

The original unfair trading practices directive dates from 2019 and set a floor of prohibited behaviours, but enforcement stayed strictly national. Waves of farmer protests across the continent in 2024 and 2025 pushed income and fairness back up the political agenda, and the Commission published its cross-border proposal in December 2024. Details are set out in the Council statement.

What happens next

The regulation enters into force 18 months after publication in the Official Journal, giving member states time to wire up the cooperation channels and appoint coordinators. Attention now shifts to the autumn, when the Commission’s promised below-cost-selling initiative will test how far Brussels is willing to push against the buyers who set the prices.