Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the "European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 79/373/EEC on the marketing of compound feedingstuffs"

(2000/C 140/05)

On 23 March 2000, the Council of the European Union decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under Article 152 of the Treaty establishing the European Community on the "European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 79/373/EEC on the marketing of compound feedingstuffs".

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 15 March 2000. The rapporteur was Mr Nielsen.

At its 371st plenary session (meeting of 29 March 2000) the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 78 votes to one.

1. Background

1.1. The EU's extensive and complex legislation on feedingstuffs seeks as far as possible to combine safety and health considerations, information on content and use, and free competition and trade aspects. In the current proposal, the Commission is proposing the introduction of mandatory "open" declarations for compounds, in the form of detailed information concerning the qualitative and quantitative composition of feedingstuffs. To date "closed" declarations have indicated feed material categories without providing more detailed particulars of quality or quantity. However, to avoid unsubstantiated and misleading claims, it will in future still only be permissible to report objective or measurable quantities that can be shown.

1.2. Council Directive 79/373/EEC on the marketing of compound feedingstuffs(1), as last amended by Directive 90/44/EEC(2), lays down rules for labelling as regards composition and use. When Directive 90/44/EEC was adopted in 1990, quantitative determination of the feed materials used apparently raised verification problems, mainly because of the nature of the materials used, the complexity of the mixtures or the manufacturing methods. It was therefore decided not to require indication of the quantity of feed materials. Further, a number of materials were grouped under a common denomination and the information provided relates to categories of ingredients.

1.3. Open, as opposed to closed, declarations for compounds have since been the subject of heated discussion. Since February 1997 the European Parliament and its Temporary Committee of inquiry into BSE have consistently pressed for a mandatory, open declaration containing qualitative details of the ingredients and origin of the feed materials; quantitative indications have been recommended on several occasions. The Commission and the Standing Committee for feedingstuffs have also pointed out that to require quantitative and qualitative labelling presupposes that such information can be controlled, and that labelling should be based on recognised methods of analysis. However, at a Standing Committee meeting during the "dioxin crisis" in July 1999, most Member States supported an optional, open declaration.

1.4. The Commission's proposal recognises the advantages of an open declaration for users, while the BSE crisis and dioxin pollution cases bear out the need for detailed information. The qualitative and quantitative indication of feed materials in feedingstuffs for production animals would seem to continue to cause problems but labelling control based on analyses can, in the Commission's view, be supplemented by checks on the producer's documents, including checks carried out by the official authorities of the country of origin.

1.5. In the light of the above, the Commission is proposing "at this stage" mandatory indication of all feed materials and the quantities of such materials in compound feedingstuffs for production animals.

2. General comments

2.1. Opinions differ on the extent to which the existing rules have proved effective. Generally, on production-related grounds, the agricultural sector calls for maximum transparency in the form of open declarations, while the animal feed industry continues to oppose open declarations on grounds of the difficulty of controlling the labelling declaration, the need to protect product development and intellectual property rights to compounds, along with the practical problems of indicating changing feed formulas on labels. Another of the industry's claims is that an open declaration instils a false sense of security as well as that conditions will be more stringent than for foodstuffs. In addition, traditions and practices in the Member States differ. For instance, farmers and industry in the Netherlands wish to be able to retain the traditional Dutch system whereby animal feed cooperatives are checked by an independent institute ("De Schothorst"), which tests the quality and composition of compound feedingstuffs at the place of production. Concurrently animal feed producers are required to provide, on a confidential basis, any relevant information requested by an individual farmer.

2.2. In the ESC's view, the animal feed industry's arguments are justified to some extent but at the same time the increasing need for livestock producers to know the exact composition of feedingstuffs, combined with growing pressure from buyers for documentation from previous links in the production chain, militate for a change. Another major factor is the need to upgrade the priority of food safety aspects and the authorities' increasing demand for documentation to be able to trace pollution and undesirable substances back to the source.

2.3. An optional open declaration would be inconsistent with the desired information and transparency, besides distorting terms of competition between animal feed producers. In addition, optional and mandatory open declarations require the same possibilities of control. Transparency must take precedence over protection of operators' product development. Protection of intellectual property rights is not an issue since compound feedingstuffs are normally not patented. Quite apart from the animal feed industry's claim that mandatory open declarations would curb the development of new, improved feedingstuffs, the ESC feels that transparency is a suitable starting point as it must be regarded as conducive to fairer competition and provide greater incentive to produce the best possible compounds.

2.4. The problem of altering labels when food formulas change can, as suggested by the Commission, be solved if the open declaration with feed materials indicated in percentage by weight can be displayed on another label or in a special accompanying document. In future self regulation by animal feed producers, certification of internal control systems, registration of batches, etc. will be increasingly necessary under pressure from both buyers and public authorities. The ESC therefore feels that control of documents, to back up analysis results, will become normal practice in future. So far, however, control of documents has not proved necessary in Member States which, on a voluntary basis, have a practice of open labelling with attendant controls.

2.5. The ESC agrees with the proposed amendment's exclusion of pet food. As the current legislation on these products can be considered adequate, the status quo is preserved. There will therefore continue to be scope for a mandatory, partly open declaration (with the possibility of indicating feed material categories instead of the feed materials themselves) or an optional open declaration.

2.6. In the light of the above, the ESC can support the Commission's proposal as reflected in the explanations and reasons given in the text.

3. Special comments

3.1. The ESC regrets that it is impossible for the layman to get a clear overview of the impact of the drafting changes in a proposal like the present one because of the absence of a consolidated text incorporating all amendments made since the adoption of the original text in 1979. Hence it is not possible to comment on the details of the Commission proposal. For purposes of transparency, the ESC also urges that consolidated texts be at the very least made available at all times, via CELEX.

Brussels, 29 March 2000.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Beatrice Rangoni Machiavelli

(1) OJ L 86, 6.4.1979, p. 30.

(2) OJ L 27, 31.1.1990, p. 35.