After a 2022 full of uncertainty for all the producers of lavender, the last days of 2022, had prepared a pleasant surprise for them. In a press release issued by the European Union, rectified the proposal of the regulation of the European Union, in which there was include previously to the lavender oil like a 'chemical product'.
The French euro-deputy, François-Xavier Bellamy, who is part of the Partido Popular Europeo, was the leader of the amendment in which it demanded the exclusion of the lavender oil as 'chemical product'. In the presentation of the amendment, Bellamy explained that the lavender had accompanied the humanity during more than two thousand years and that it was of great importance to preserve the crop of the lavender in France, but also in determinate zones of Spain, like Castilla-La Mancha or Castilla y León.
On the 15 December, the amendment was approved and it means to preserve the inheritance that possesses in Spain and in zones of France the production of these aromatic plants. Manchegan's provinces like Toledo or Cuenca asked at the beginning of 2022 that the Spanish Government mobilizer to undertake actions to defend the crop of lavender of these zones when the European Union indicated that in his Strategy of Sustainability went to define the lavender oil like “toxic”. To finals of the month of October, the European Union sued time and decided to postpone until finals of 2023 the review of the draft of the commonly designated 'Green Pact'. When knowing the draft of the new normative, the producers did not take in mobilizers describing as 'disproportionate' the presumptive toxicity of the lavender and that this, would mean "the end of the production of aromatic plants in Europe".
This was a subject that generated a big restlessness in Spain, since it gives place to more than 5.000 places of work, especially in rural zones and thanks to the crop of the lavender obtain more than 10,5 million annual euros and nourishes to the cosmetic industry.
Although it seems good news, the Managing Director of the Asociación Española de Fragancias y Aromas Alimentarios, Germán del Castillo, warns that this news must be taken with some caution and prudence, and that the AEFAA is still waiting for this to be confirmed by an official statement from the European authorities.