Key issues at stake in beef labelling challenge

Date: 03/04/1997

THE European Commission insisted this week that important legal and political issues were at stake in its promised legal challenge to EU governments in a dispute over beef labelling.

The Commission decided last week to challenge the decision by Union farm ministers to overturn its attempt to give MEPs equal power in drawing up legislation on beef labelling. It is now waiting to see whether the European Parliament will begin legal action of its own in the European Court of Justice, or whether Commission President Jacques Santer must go it alone.

“This is an important legal and political matter which needs to be clarified by the Court. Although we had a strong political desire to involve the Parliament, we also believe we had convincing legal grounds for proposing what we did,” said a senior Commission official.

Critics saw the Commission's decision to change the legal basis of the proposal as a knee-jerk reaction to the threat of a censure motion against the whole institution by MEPs angry at the EU executive's handling of the BSE crisis.

But Santer insists the move was designed to make it clear that the single market and consumer elements of the plan were of overriding importance.

He is not merely challenging the fact that ministers rode roughshod over his plans to award MEPs the right of co-decision, but believes there are more basic legal issues at stake. “This will give a clear judgement for the future,” the official added, underlining that the Commission wanted co-decision to be extended to all areas of agricultural policy-making.

The key issue the ECJ will have to decide is what goal the labelling legislation ultimately sought to achieve - whether it was predominantly a Common Agricultural Policy measure or a single market measure designed to protect consumer health.

This will enable it to determine whether the Commission was right to change the legal base for the proposal from Article 43 - which refers specifically to agricultural policy-making and gives the Parliament the right only to be consulted - to Article 100a, which relates to single market measures and where MEPs share decision-making powers.