Parliament set to demand changes to chocolate rules

Date: 10/02/2000

By Renée Cordes

THE European Parliament is threatening to unravel the agreement on new rules to govern the content of chocolate reached by EU governments last year after long and tortuous negotiations.

Support is growing in the assembly for a number of amendments to the proposed legislation which would almost certainly be rejected by member states.

Under the provisional deal agreed by governments last autumn, chocolate on sale in the Union would be allowed to contain up to 5% of certain vegetable fats other than cocoa, as long as they were clearly labelled.

The full Parliament is due to vote on the proposals later this month and is expected to back Belgian Green MEP Paul Lannoye's calls for mandatory labelling on the front of chocolate wrappers to indicate that the product contains vegetable oil. Support is also growing for his suggestion that a study be conducted into the potential impact of the measure on cocoa-producing countries.

If the assembly supports these changes, it will put itself on a collision course with governments, which agreed last year that the rules should only require labels indicating the use of cocoa substitutes to be included on the back of wrappers.

An inter-institutional clash would delay final agreement on the new legislation yet again while the two sides hold conciliation talks to try to settle their differences, causing more uncertainty for the industry.