Hopes fade for agreement on labelling of diabetic foods

Date: 09/05/1996

By Thomas Klau

GERMANY looks set to continue resisting attempts to impose an EU-wide ban on the special labelling and advertising of foodstuffs for diabetics, which an overwhelming majority of EU member states say have been made obsolete by the latest medical research.

With the exception of Germany, all other member states have called on the Commission to withdraw its proposal for a special directive on diabetic food.

They say modern medicine allows diabetics to eat ordinary foods, provided they choose what they eat carefully. Given this, they argue, labelling of food for diabetics could be potentially counter-productive, as some diabetics might be misled into thinking that consuming specially-labelled food is healthy in itself.

Yet while the Commission, the European Parliament and Germany - the three backers of the diabetic food directive - agree that there is no medical requirement for this kind of labelling, they insist that diabetics should be able to purchase products made for their consumption and advertised as such.

“It is not a matter of medical necessity, it is a matter of convenience,” said a Commission official.

EU law generally bans the use of medical arguments in advertisements for foods (other than officially recognised medical products) to protect consumers from being bombarded with such recommendations.

Bonn Ministry of Health officials say many diabetic products currently available in Germany would be banned from sale in their present form if it was forced to scrap the law allowing diabetic food to be advertised as such.

Bonn is coming under pressure from an important domestic industry to defy its EU partners' consensus. Special high-price products for diabetics, such as jam and even wine, are available in practically every German supermarket.

But while Germany is officially sticking to its hard-line defence of diabetic labelling, Commission officials say there are signs that its position is currently under review and Bonn might finally be preparing to join its EU partners in opposing the Commission. However, few expect the German position to evolve fast enough for the deadlock to be broken at next week's meeting of EU health ministers.

Unanimity would be required to overturn the Commission's proposal, given MEPs' support for its stand.