A4-0009/98

Resolution on the Commission Green Paper on the general principles of food law in the European Union (COM(97)0176 - C4-0213/97)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Commission Green Paper (COM(97)0176 - C4-0213/97),

- having regard to the Commission communication on consumer health and food safety (COM(97)0183),

- having regard to the outcome of two conferences held jointly by the European Parliament and the Commission, viz: the Conference on animal-meal (1 and 2 July 1997, in Brussels) and the Conference on food law and food policy (3 and 4 November 1997, in Brussels),

- having regard to the report by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the opinions of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Fisheries (A4-0009/98),

A. whereas the purpose of the Commission Green Paper is to launch a public debate on the existing state of food law at Community level; whereas the question that needs to be asked in particular is whether the existing legislative setup is meeting the needs and expectations of consumers, producers (agriculture and industry) and traders,

B. whereas the legislation currently under discussion concerning liability and guarantees for all products including primary products requires detailed consultations with the groups affected thereby;

C. whereas the Green Paper has been submitted at a time when changes are being made to the organizational structure of Commission departments and scientific consultation, and an overhaul of the areas of food safety and consumer protection is being conducted in the wake of the BSE crisis,

D. whereas the abovementioned Commission communication on consumer health and food safety, adopted at the same time as the Green Paper on food law, represents a very important supplement to the latter,

E. whereas the Commission progress report on the results secured by the BSE Committee of Inquiry and the report by the BSE monitoring committee will have to be taken into consideration in the legislative proposals, thereby responding explicitly to the many criticisms made by Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection about the preliminary report submitted by the Commission,

F. whereas the amendments to Articles 129 (in particular paragraph 4b thereof) and 129a of the Treaty adopted at the Amsterdam intergovernmental conference represent a fundamental extension to and legal basis for Community policies on preventive health protection and consumer protection,

G. whereas the fact that the Commission has separated scientific advice and control from food policy making and has adopted an inter-service working manual to ensure the systematic integration of consumer and public health concerns in the definition and implementation of food policy is not enough to guarantee food safety,

H. whereas the external dimension is assuming ever increasing importance as a result of the conclusion of the World Trade Agreement (WTO), including those aspects relating to European food law,

I. whereas the same standards are to be laid down for food imports from, and exports to, third countries as are applied to foodstuffs produced within the Community for the internal market,

J. whereas future reform of the Common Agriculture Policy together with Agenda 2000 and preparations for the enlargement of the Community to the east, should be conducted in conjunction with the framework of principles established as a result of the Green Paper,

K. whereas high public health standards are crucially dependent on the implementation of stringent food and veterinary hygiene provisions,

L. whereas the Commission has already embarked on a number of welcome initiatives to consolidate 14 individual directives concerning the production and marketing of food derived from animals,

M. whereas most Member States are not implementing Directive 92/117/EEC on measures against zoonoses (for instance salmonella), leading to the appalling and unacceptable reaction from the Council to delay the implementation dates,

N. whereas food quality also depends very strongly on the state of the environment (e.g. drinking water, air and soil quality and treatment of waste), and consequently on environmental legislation,

O. whereas considerable progress has already been made in the past towards creating an internal market with a high level of consumer protection and whereas ensuring the free movement of goods will continue to be of great importance in the future,

P. whereas quality is, moreover, heavily dependent on farming and stock-raising methods, with intensive production inevitably necessitating recourse to various chemical inputs, pharmaceuticals and additives, the residues of which are encountered in food,

Q. whereas it is essential to rectify the current profoundly muddled state of Community food law by making it transparent and user-friendly, thereby also helping to improve the competitiveness and further development of the internal market,

R. whereas the Commission is to examine in what manner the national authorities apply the relevant rules in the Member States and is planning a communication on the implementation of Community rules,

S. whereas the competitiveness of European industry and export opportunities for foods produced are closely bound up with questions of quality,

T. whereas reciprocal recognition promotes the free movement of goods and thereby helps to ensure variety of supply and distribution of regional specialities,

U. whereas voluntary agreements or self-imposed commitments by industry are a suitable mechanism for supplementing the general principles and minimum requirements for guaranteeing consumer protection as laid down by law; whereas, however, in addition to the necessary transparency of the agreements and the special situation of SMEs, care must be taken to ensure that such arrangements guarantee the necessary consumer protection,

V. whereas the legislation now under consideration on liability and guarantees for all products, including primary products, is an important step towards winning back consumer confidence,

W. whereas a number of issues raised in the Green Paper have already been discussed in such detail that legislative proposals could be drawn up (e.g. as a framework directive on food); whereas others require further elaboration through a Commission communication (e.g. food policy),

X. whereas many illnesses, in particular chronic illnesses, are attributable to nutritional factors,

Y. whereas foodstuffs are not commodities like any others, since consumers often associate food with numerous, often deeply personal, feelings and values,

1. Welcomes the Commission Green Paper as an important contribution to launching a debate on the existing condition and the future of Community food law;

2. Calls on the Commission to submit proposals, within a framework directive for, inter alia, clear and comprehensive definitions of the concepts used (e.g. foodstuffs, placing on the market, consumers, additives etc.), which must also apply uniformly to all special and detailed rules;

3. Calls on the Commission to submit proposals making it a general legal requirement that only safe, wholesome food fit for human consumption may be placed on the market;

4. Calls on the Commission also to submit proposals for structuring a food policy at Community level, having regard to healthy eating and quality of food;

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5. Calls on the Commission to promote education on nutrition and health on the basis of preventive health-care action programmes so that consumers can go better armed with information from different sources and make responsible choices in terms of both buying behaviour and food-product selection and calls on the Commission to ensure that consumers have access to healthy and high-quality food;

6. Notes that in the rapidly growing market in regional products, basic principles must be laid down in relation to safety, health and labelling; and calls on the Commission to submit proposals in that connection;

Simplification and review of existing Community provisions

7. Insists that the choice of mechanisms - legislation, reciprocal recognition, voluntary agreements - must always be such as to ensure that high standards of food safety and preventive health care can be maintained in the most efficient and consumer-friendly manner possible;

8. Supports the view, as set out in the Green Paper, that a regulated food sector is essential to ensuring a high level of consumer and public health protection, and that existing safeguards should be maintained;

9. Calls on the Commission and the Member States, in areas that require absolute uniformity, such as provisions governing labelling and drinking-water quality, to adopt regulations on the legal basis of Article 100a of the EC Treaty;

10. Calls on the Commission to submit a proposal on a framework directive on food;

11. Calls on the Commission to supplement and/or adapt accordingly the legislation on hygiene to bring it into line with the prospective framework directive on food and thereby create greater certainty in the application of legislation on food;

12. Calls on the Commission, in conducting the review of Community provisions, to take special care to identify contradictory legislation and loopholes in the law and, where appropriate, to submit proposals for reform, particularly in the areas of authorization and labelling (production methods, new additives, enzymes, added vitamins, GMOs, health claims, allergy compatibility etc.); this review should aim to increase clarity and provide the necessary consolidation of the legislation;

13. Calls on the Commission to increase the transparency of Community legislation and to strengthen structured consultation of representatives of consumers, farmers, trade and industry;

14. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to improve the clarity and transparency of the comitology system;

15. Calls on the Commission to ensure the effective implementation of the internal market provisions in the non-harmonized area of the food sector, and in particular to take consumer needs into account;

16. Calls on the Commission to ensure consistent application of the principle of mutual recognition; notes in this connection that it is essential to introduce Community-wide uniform codification in line with the pronouncements of the European Court of Justice;

Ensuring a high level of protection

(a) Scientific basis

17. Insists that the operative assumption must always be that authorized food products placed on the market must comply with the principles of quality, food safety and preventive health protection;

18. Calls on the Commission to adopt a coordinating structure to prevent the marketing of foodstuffs posing a potential threat to the consumer and establish a food alert network and a system for the rapid withdrawal of products from the market;

19. Welcomes the Commission's idea to set up a special forum for public discussion of the transposition and application of Community rules in which appropriate organizations of producers, industry, commerce and consumers - as well as representatives of the Commission and Member States - take part; takes the view, however, that provision must also be made for the participation of Members of the European Parliament in order to guarantee the consistency of legislation;

20. Calls on the Commission to continue with the process of reorganizing the scientific committees so as to secure greater transparency, enhance specialist competence and ensure the independence of their members;

21. Recognises the importance of ensuring that the scientific committees are adequately resourced and supported so that they are able to perform their function to the highest possible standard; calls on the Commission to recognise the need for consumer representation on these committees;

22. Notes that European food law rests on the principle of preventive health care and consumer protection; points out that the relevant policy should be based on scientifically backed risk analysis, supplemented where necessary by reliable risk management based on a precautionary approach;

23. Welcomes the establishment of a unit on risk assessment and calls on the Commission to ensure that adequate and consistent methods of risk assessment are developed and applied;

24. Takes the view that the envisaged unit on risk assessment must work within an institutional system linking up the scientific committees, the product authorization authorities and the coordinated food alert system;

25. Calls on the Commission to take the results of new scientific research immediately into account and to commission long-term investigations; draws attention, moreover, to the importance of prompt and efficient adjustment of existing legislation to new scientific findings;

26. Urges the Commission to develop the form and substance of policy not solely on the basis of scientific understanding and the precautionary principle, but also in response to consumer concern;

(b) Liability

27. Calls on the Commission to dispel ambiguities arising in connection with primary liability, including such questions as the extent of farmers' liability or the possibility of persons being liable jointly and severally, if the producer of the product can no longer be identified or it is no longer possible to specify at what point in the production process hygiene provisions were neglected;

28. Calls on the Commission to continue to improve traceability throughout the food chain;

29. Regards it as a fundamental principle that food producers and growers provide scientific evidence that their products pose no risk to consumers' health;

30. Notes that in relation to primary liability, additional information about pre-production inputs used in agriculture (e.g. seeds, plant protection agents, fertilizers, animal feed, etc.) must be available and it must be ensured that the producers of these agricultural primary products accept liability for their products in accordance with Directive 85/374/EEC;

31. Agrees that liability for food safety should be accepted at every stage in the food chain, but insists that each player in that chain is responsible for the quality of the product when it leaves for the next part of the chain. i.e. agricultural producers are responsible for what leaves the farm gate, with total liability if sold directly to the public: however, if distributors, food processors, manufacturers, or retailers, having received raw materials, animal or plant, of the required standard, make errors which lead to a defective product, responsibility should be accepted only back to the point at which rules were broken or risks taken;

32. Calls on the Commission to investigate whether the need exists for trade agreements on the 'Incoterm' model to be applied to primary food products, so as to make transfers of liability clearly identifiable;

33. Stresses that responsibility for the safety and health clearance of food must be differentiated according to areas of responsibility and that every marketer of food should, in principle, be held responsible under criminal and administrative law within his actual sphere of influence;

34. Calls on the Commission to submit a proposal for a general food safety and health requirement which clarifies food manufacturers' liability for product safety;

35. Calls on the Commission to ensure that all the operators who comply with Community food law in its entirety have access to means of appealing against any action brought against them on the basis of the directive on defective products;

(c) The 'farm-to-table' approach

36. Is a firm supporter of the integrated 'farm-to-table' approach and notes that the 'farm-to-table' approach must also result in the release of information about production inputs (e.g. animal feed) and production methods if it is to remain credible and advocates that this approach should provide complete information about production inputs and production methods to regain consumer confidence;

37. Calls on the Commission to implement the integrated 'farm-to-table' principle with specific legislative initiatives on liability and inspection;

38. Calls on the Commission to take the Council to court for disregarding the deadline of 1 January 1995 to decide on the measures required to control salmonella in flocks of layers (hens);

39. Urges the Commission, in the context of the 'farm-to-table' approach, to incorporate environmental protection into food policy as its initial position and sustainable food production as its objective;

40. Calls on the Commission to insist that the directive on biological agriculture must also be extended to animal products;

(d) Transposition and inspections

41. Considers that the Commission must make greater use of its inspection function as 'Guardian of the Treaties' and must intervene more rapidly against Member States that fail to comply with their Treaty obligations;

42. Calls on the Member States to incorporate Community law effectively into national law and to ensure that the penalties for infringements of Community law are equal to the penalties laid down in the respective national provisions and are equally effective;

43. Calls for increased financial support from EU funds for organic and sustainable agricultural practices which represent an attractive and healthy alternative to intensive farming for consumers and for the environment;

44. Urges strict regulation of animal feedstuffs at Community level; this applies particularly to the quantitative declaration of ingredients;

45. Recommends that there should be clear regulations and advice on the use and content of artificial inputs to crop production such as pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers to ensure that chemical residues in plant products and in ground and surface water are kept well below the legal maximum levels to ensure consumer health;

46. Believes that animal welfare makes a significant contribution to the quality and safety of animal food products, and therefore animal welfare legislation, including that regarding abattoirs and transport, cannot be considered in isolation from food law as a whole;

47. Believes that there should be strict regulation to prevent the feeding of antibiotics to livestock for prophylactic purposes - where it is not essential - rather than to treat specific veterinary conditions, to ensure that residues of such antibiotics do not spread through the environment and the food chain, undermining the effectiveness of antibiotics to combat bacterial infections in humans;

48. Asks the Comission to review Community legislation on the use of antibiotics in animal feed in order to avoid any use other than for therapeutic purposes;

49. Recognises that European farmers take pride in the efficient production of some of the best primary food products in the world, which can form the basis of a healthy diet for Europe's citizens, and the need for a clear regulatory framework to maintain and improve existing high standards, not least by encouraging links between all those in the sector and applying clear labelling standards in respect of product origin;

50. Calls on the Member States to improve their compliance with their food-inspection responsibilities, and calls on the Commission, in addition to the internal handbook for food inspectors, to offer continuing-education programmes and workshops at Union level;

51. Calls on the Commission to continue to instruct the Joint Research Centre and/or the CEN to draw up standard sampling plans and testing procedures;

52. Considers that veterinary and phytosanitary regulations, including regular on-the-spot checks in Member States and in third countries exporting animals or animal products to the Community, are a vital component in ensuring the quality and safety of European food;

53. Calls on the Commission to provide appropriate expert assistance for SMEs in particular to understand the HACCP system (hazard analysis and critical control point) in line inter alia with the recommendations of the general hygiene directive (93/43/EEC);

54. Calls specifically for all food products imported from third countries to be made subject to the same standards as are applied to products from within the European Union and insists that the promotion of international trade in food products must not be at the expense of public health protection, animal welfare and concern for the environment within the European Union;

55. Calls on the Commission to submit a proposal for the consolidation and codification of the labelling directive, 79/112/EEC, based on the current principle of functional labelling, i.e. that compulsory food labelling must contain the necessary information for product differentiation and product use;

56. With a view to guaranteeing the operation of the internal market and safeguarding human health, the Commission should remedy the shortcomings identified in the application of existing inspection methods to promote more uniform and stringent inspection;

57. Accepts the value of HACCP-type systems, but does not believe that they can be a substitute for clear regulations without a full assessment of their implications and impact particularly on small farmers and food processors;

58. Calls on the Commission to ascertain to what extent the HACCP system can really be applied to SMEs and farms;

59. Recommends improvement in the rule on collection and collation of information on zoonoses, to determine whether or not a zoonosis presents a real problem and requires action appropriate to the particular zoonosis;

(e) Consumer information

60. Calls on the Commission, over and above provisions stipulating simple and clear labelling, also to develop new sources of consumer information (e.g. new media);

61. Calls on the Commission, with a view to minimizing the risk of infection being transferred from animals to humans, to facilitate more stringent and faster handling in the Member States of identified infected herds under Directive 92/117/EEC;

62. Calls on the Commission to survey and evaluate existing labelling legislation, and on that basis to submit a proposal for clear, understandable and orderly labelling requirements;

63. Is in favour of replacing vertical directives with horizontal ones in order to achieve more consistency and clarity in food legislation, but draws attention to the fact that greater consistency must not adversely affect the current high standards of protection and quality which can only be satisfactorily guaranteed by means of legislation designed to deal with specific products;

64. Welcomes the proposal to move away from compound ingredients listing and calls for full ingredients labelling with effective information for the growing numbers suffering from food allergies;

65. Insists that food sold in bulk should be marked in a clear and comprehensible manner for the consumer;

66. Calls on the Commission to come forward with legislation on food claims to ensure, inter alia, that food-product health claims are only authorized if they are tested and confirmed by an independent body within the European Union and calls on the Commission also to continue in future to ban advertising claims that a particular food is suitable for treating, curing or preventing disease, though claims regarding nutritional value and healthy diet and their importance to health and/or in reducing the risk of disease should be allowed if they are based on sufficient and recognized scientific findings and if they are tested and confirmed by an independent body within the European Union;

67. Calls on the Commission to facilitate access to a nutritious diet through standardised, comprehensive and clear nutrition labelling across the EU, based on consumer research in order to establish the format that will be most useful to consumers;

68. Supports the intention to review the Nutrition Labelling Directive as soon as possible in order to improve coherence and clarity there;

69. Reaffirms the overriding need for a precautionary approach to the assessment and evaluation of applications for the marketing of GMOs intended to enter the food chain and calls for the development of clear identification of genetically modified foods or ingredients in foods by consistent, comprehensive and informative labelling where they have been approved for use;

70. Views with alarm the fact that the Commission has so far failed to enact implementing provisions to permit the clear and uniform labelling necessary to give practical effect to European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No. 258/97 concerning novel foods and novel food ingredients (as called for in Parliament's resolution of 12 June 1997 on the subject ((OJ C 200, 30.6.1997, p. 147.))) or to secure agreement to any detailed proposals to label genetically modified soya and maize as required in Article 3 of Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1813/97 concerning the compulsory indication on the labelling of certain foodstuffs produced from genetically modified organisms of particulars other than those provided for in Directive 79/112/EEC;

71. In this context, proposes that an effective GMO labelling system should be based on derivation from genetic engineering techniques and not on arbitrary measurements of residues in the final product;

72. Calls for the urgent development of detailed Community criteria for positive labelling of foods and food ingredients produced without genetic engineering, as provided for in Recital 10 of the novel food Regulation and in line with the intended exclusion of the use of genetic engineering from organic agriculture;

The external dimension

73. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to make every endeavour to bring the current negotiations on the Community's membership of the Codex Alimentarius Committee to a successful conclusion;

74. Notes that the Codex Alimentarius does not accept consumer concerns as the basis for setting international standards and calls on the Commission to launch a discussion process on how the Commission's new scientific committees and the Codex Alimentarius scientific committees can best coordinate their future activities to ensure that such concerns are taken into account; calls on the Commission also to make every effort to amend the Codex Alimentarius decision-making process so as to bring it more into line with the real impact of Codex standards since the WTO was established;

75. Calls on the Commission to submit the necessary proposals with a view to making a choice in terms of how subsequent legislation should cope with criteria, other than scientific criteria, that can influence consumer acceptance of foods; draws attention to the need for such criteria to be explicitly incorporated into the greater part of legislation so that the European Union will stand a better chance of making rational policy choices that can hold their own in a global context;

76. Calls on the Commission to actively work for proper democratic control and transparency, as well as increased consumer participation in all stages of Codex Alimentarius decision making;

77. Calls on the Commission to forestall any attempts by WTO bodies to call Community food law into question by instructing its scientific committees to develop a full set of arguments based on the precautionary principle;

78. Calls on the Commission and Member States to give priority to consumer safety and to ensure that future WTO trade agreements and negotiations acknowledge the importance of legitimate consumer concerns, including ethical and religious concerns about certain methods of production;

79. Calls on the Commission, in anticipation of the forthcoming renewal of WTO and Codex Alimentarius trade agreements, to adopt European standards for the safety, protection and health of the consumer as its decisive underlying principle;

80. Urges the Commission under no circumstances to lift the ban on hormone treated meat, and if necessary as an emergency action also to accept the need to pay possible fines and levies;

81. Calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to seek a review of the WTO agreement on health and plant-health measures, in order to affirm that the precautionary principle and the imperatives of health and safety must take precedence over free trade;

82. Calls on the Commission to work towards ensuring proportionally greater consumer involvement within the Codex Alimentarius decision making process;

83. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to make their best efforts to ensure the development of criteria that recognize consumer concern as a possible basis for food policy, in addition to scientific understanding and the precautionary principle;

84. Calls on the Commission to review current legislative texts so as to ensure that they clearly affirm that they are based on the precautionary principle and the principle of the precedence of consumer health and safety; calls on the Commission, when submitting proposals for legislation, to incorporate justifications, in particular the precautionary principle and the principle of consumer protection, into the text;

85. Calls on the Commission in anticipation of European Union enlargement, to pay full attention to the acceptance by applicant states of the acquis communautaire in the area of food law and of the link between agricultural policy, public health and food policy;

86. Believes checks on third-country food imports must be strictly enforced and extended to include checks on the various production criteria such as hygiene, animal welfare and environmental and social compatibility and on imports of live animals for slaughter;

87. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council and the governments of the Member States.