Ms Henrieta Jany-Roskova:

I thank the Senator for the question and explanation. This is a tool for the market actors, for farmers to co-operate with other actors, such as processors or retail. It is not binding on the basis of a free trade agreement. These guidelines provide an explanation of how to design sustainability agreements between private operators in order to comply with the new exclusions from competition rules.

The second question was on the public consultation. We reached out to different actors. We have carried out two public consultations. One was on the basis of a questionnaire that was published and open to anybody who wanted to participate. We have reached out to ministers for agriculture and asked them to disseminate this. We have reached out to competition authorities and we also invited them to support us with the dissemination of this survey. We have also reached out to the various associations to support these outreach activities. In addition, in the context of the Commission CAP network, we also disseminated information concerning the public consultation through the thematic working group, which discussed sustainability agreements. We have reached out to farmers and farm associations. We have also been in contact with consumer associations. Consumers could, on the basis of the information in social media, contribute to this consultation. Moreover, we had a second round of consultations on the basis of draft guidelines explaining the exclusion and we used tools similar to those I have mentioned. After receiving the feedback for the public consultation, we also organised a conference in order to discuss the most important submissions and questions.