28 October: Internal Market Council

Date: 04/11/1999

SINGLE market ministers rubber-stamped proposed EU-wide legislation which would allow chocolate makers to include non-cocoa vegetable fats in their products. The planned directive, which has yet to be approved by the European Parliament, would require Union countries to permit the sale of all chocolate made in the EU, as long as vegetable fat content did not exceed 5&percent; of the finished product and was clearly labelled. The Union has been trying for years to draw up common rules on chocolate to ensure it can be sold freely throughout the bloc.

MINISTERS welcomed a report drawn up by the Finnish presidency which calls for environmental protection concerns to be incorporated into all future Union-wide single market measures. The 16-page document, which will go to the Helsinki summit in December along with similar reports from other Councils, urges greener laws in areas such as public procurement, recommending, for example, that companies bidding for contracts which do not comply with EU environmental protection laws should be automatically excluded from public tenders.

It also recommends that environmental organisations be given a say in the development of European industry-wide standards, which are mainly voluntary and set by supra-national bodies, although it makes no reference to their involvement in setting international standards.

DISCUSSIONS on common rules to govern take-over bids in the EU failed to make progress because of continuing arguments between Spain and the UK over Gibraltar. The long-running dispute is holding up agreement on the proposals because Madrid fears that the UK could set up a separate take-over supervisory authority in Gibraltar. Finnish Trade and European Affairs Minister Kimmo Sasi said he hoped that the two countries would be able to find common ground ahead of the next internal market ministers meeting on 7 December. The draft take-over directive, which was first proposed in 1989 and revised in 1997, would lay down minimum requirements for the protection of minority shareholders and the conduct of a target company's board as well as information for employees.

MINISTERS also failed to reach agreement on long-stalled Commission proposals for EU legislation which would require galleries and auction houses across the Union to pay artists a share of the sale price when their works of art are resold. The UK reiterated its objections to the plan, claiming that it would make the London art market less competitive, and was supported by Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark. Helsinki had proposed a compromise which would have, among other things, exempted art works worth more than €1 million from the scope of the legislation, but this was not enough to win over the British government.

THERE was also a discussion on the action plan for ensuring a well-functioning single market and ministers heard reports on the Commission's Green Paper on producer liability and the state of play on single-market measures for sugar and milk.