Regulation of the marketing of olive oil through RD 84/2021 and collussory agreements

Abstract

The agri-food sector generally presents a rather complicated situation with regard to the instability of prices at source. The same does not happen with the last link in the chain, the marketing one, which normally obtains profits from the sale of these products. The olive oil sector suffers from this type of imbalance and also does it on a recurring basis. Given these circumstances, the legislator has chosen to approve by means of a Royal Decree, the establishment of the basic rules that allow the withdrawal of production from the market in an orderly manner in order to alleviate the precarious situation, especially in terms of prices, and has done so based on an application of a European regulation. In this legislative comment, we ask ourselves if this rule can cause a lack of competition in the market or if it manages to stabilize prices at the origin of the olive sector and in turn does not cause harm to the consumer.