EU makes a meal of food reforms

Date: 09/05/1996

IF there is one single area of EU activity which has an impact on every one of the Union's 370 million citizens, it is food policy.

A quick glance at the panoply of complex technical rules covering the production, processing and sale of this most basic of human needs makes it plain that the days when farmers grew crops and simply sold them on to the public are far behind us.

Food legislation is mind-bogglingly complicated.

That is why the European Commission felt it was time to draw together the different strands in a single framework directive which it hoped would put an end to the Union's traditionally piecemeal approach to regulating the food industry.

But this apparently noble attempt to slim down the body of EU food legislation has been delayed by a fundamental difference in approach between different departments within the Commission.

Optimism that a Green Paper could be finalised back in January has now been replaced by vague assurances that something can be presented to the full Commission before the summer break.

Attempts to play down the divergence of views within the Commission have failed to hide a major dispute between Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann and Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler over the way forward.

Fischler's officials in DGVI would prefer a more global approach, covering all aspects of food production “from stable to table”. This approach - generally preferred by the consumer lobby - reflects a recognition of the multi-functional role of agriculture, and the need to take account of animal welfare, the use of chemicals in farming and public health from the start of the food chain.

Bangemann's DGIII favours a general directive setting out basic food law definitions and principles, reducing the need for legislation on specific issues. With responsibilities clearly split, DGIII would retain overall control of food policy.

For the moment, the two directorates-general have agreed to disagree, and the paper currently being drafted is likely to include the two alternative strategies as a basis for public consultation.

Doubts also remain that attempts to streamline legislation will prove successful. “There are too many vested interests,” commented a lobbyist from the food processing sector.

Inquisitive journalists have made food scares a regular feature of the European map, but there is no doubt that the continuing crisis over 'mad cow disease' and possible links to its human equivalent has led some people to question the wisdom of deregulation.

After all, the main purpose of EU food legislation is to ensure that consumers are protected from health and safety risks, and are properly informed about the products they are spending their money on.

Policies are also aimed at ensuring that food is able to move freely within the single market - easier said than done in a Union of 15 member states who often cling tenaciously to 'traditional' production methods.

The Commission has already run into trouble this year on just such an issue. Headlines appeared in newspapers across the EU claiming that proposals to award certain 'regional' products protected status would signal the death knell of the Danish feta cheese industry, to name but one alleged casualty of the plan.

DGVI's decision to award geographical denominations to an initial list of 320 foodstuffs, ranging from Greek feta cheese to Italian Parma ham and Newcastle Brown Ale, was opposed by DGIII as anti-competitive.

In the end, DGVI emerged victorious, but not without lengthy behind-the-scenes negotiations. Several hundred more products are still awaiting the Commission's consideration.

This was a classic example of the type of controversy which is never far away in the food sector, quite apart from the often quite ludicrous 'Euro-myths' propagated by the more mischievous members of the press.

Another was the protracted wrangling which preceded the adoption by the Commission last month of proposals to allow chocolate manufacturers in all member states to use up to 5&percent; non-cocoa fats in their recipes.

The adoption of this and six sister directives may have marked the last use of the Commission's traditional approach of legislating 'vertically' on individual foodstuffs in terms of their ingredients.

But compromise was only achieved after months of lobbying the like of which has rarely been seen in Brussels, and after Bangemann had given a vague undertaking that cocoa containing “alternative” fats would have to be labelled as such. And the battle is not yet over. This was merely the first stage of what promises to be a long and rocky journey for the directive through the EU institutions which is likely to take several years.

The bulk of food law has to make its way through the EU institutions' lengthy and cumbersome co-decision procedure, giving the European Parliament and national governments several months to tinker with proposals drawn up on recommendations from the Commission's Scientific Committee for Food.

Some food industry lobbyists are privately concerned at the influence MEPs have over the process. “How can the Parliament decide what is safe? They have no expert advice and don't honestly know what they are doing,” claims one.

But others are more charitable. “I think everyone accepts that food must come under co-decision, because of the wide range of health and consumer concerns involved. MEPs take the issues very seriously, although some do come under intense lobbying pressure,” said another.

With the Commission having adopted a number of important proposals recently, the coming months will keep members of the Parliament's committee on environment, public health and consumer affairs extremely busy.

Amendments to a directive to bring laws on the labelling and advertising of foods into line in the different member states - which goes under the acronym QUID - are already the subject of conciliation meetings between Council and Parliament.

The measure is designed to ease the workings of the internal market, where different products have often developed under the same name in different member states. To differentiate between products, British-style yoghurt, for example, is sold in continental Europe as “dairy dessert”.

Clearer legislation should also reduce the involvement of the European Court of Justice, which, in one well documented case, overturned attempts by a member state to keep out imported Sauce Béarnaise on the grounds that it had a different fat content from that of its national variety.

DGXXIV (consumer affairs) is still considering whether to draw up new guidelines to prevent misleading 'claims' on food products, stipulating, for example, whether they can be labelled as “light”. Meanwhile, the Commission is resisting attempts by the Parliament to add Swedish fruit syrup and Danish meatballs to the list of eight “traditional” foodstuffs - including German beer - in which member states can restrict the list of additives.

Separate debates are raging over whether “processed euchema seaweed” can be used as a food additive, and on the procedure to be used for deciding which flavourings can be used.

The Commission is also seeking to slim down the number of laws covering foods “for particular nutritional uses”. MEPs believe there should be a separate directive on foods for diabetics, while all member states except Germany want distinct rules on specialist foods for sportsmen.

DGVI is drafting proposals to set maximum residue levels for nitrates in products such as lettuce and spinach. Yet even this apparently innocuous idea has angered farmers in the northern member states, whose cooler weather leads to naturally higher nitrate counts.

Controversy also looms over proposals to require shops to price goods per litre or kilogram as well as per pack, with small retailers claiming this could put them at a major competitive disadvantage.

Perhaps the most emotive area of all is the Commission's proposal on “novel foods”, which is likely to set a framework for future advances in food technology.

MEPs insist that all foods which have at any stage undergone some form of genetic manipulation should be labelled. But under the Commission's proposal, labels would not be required on foods manufactured using agricultural raw materials which had been genetically-modified - such as, for example, products containing soya protein from seeds modified to make them resistant to pesticides.

In an era of rapid scientific progress in which the Commission sees research and development as a major motor of growth and job creation, the debate on the manipulation of foodstuffs looks likely to rage on for some time.

Recent decisions to authorise genetically-modified seeds for agricultural use have been greeted by Europe's biotechnology industry with considerable relief.

But a note of caution was sounded last month when an application for a licence for a modified maize was held up over concerns that it might cause antibiotic resistance in humans.

The biotechnology debate highlights perhaps most powerfully the range of influential and contradictory interests operating in the food sector.

One thing is sure. Whatever proposals for a new framework the Commission comes forward with, getting agreement will be far from easy.