Opinion on the proposal for a Council Directive on the circulation of feed materials amending Directives 70/524/EEC, 74/63/EEC, 80/511/EEC, 82/471/EEC, 82/475/EEC, 91/357/EEC, 91/516/EEC, 92/87/EEC and 93/74/EEC as well as repealing Directive 77/101/EEC

(95/C 102/04)

On 14 September 1994, the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under Articles 43 and 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the abovementioned proposal.

The Section for Agriculture and Fisheries, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its Opinion on 10 January 1995. The Rapporteur was Mr Gardner.

At its 322nd Plenary Session (meeting of 25 January 1995), the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following Opinion by a unanimous vote.

1. General comments

1.1. There is at present considerable variation in the national application of feedingstuff regulations and the Commission has put forward this proposal to remove these discrepancies given the needs of the single market. The Committee fully approves this desire.

1.2. However, instead of harmonizing to the minimum necessary level, this proposal tends towards practice in countries with the greatest level of administrative load, thus leading to appreciable administrative and cost increases in many other countries.

1.3. The Commission should therefore review the proposal overall given the need to reduce the load of administrative costs throughout the EU and make the EU more competitive internationally. With this proviso, the Committee accepts the proposal subject to the following detailed remarks and changes.

2. Detailed comments

2.1.

Article 5

2.1.1. This requires a large number of details to be given on the packages or documents. The Committee completely agrees that the information must be available to the final user.

2.1.2. The proposal also wants these to be given at each stage of the selling chain.

2.1.3. The Committee feels that this is probably necessary to achieve the essential end result, which is to provide all necessary information to the final user.

2.2.

Article 6

This raises several points:

2.2.1. The moisture level - this will be discussed in 3.1 below.

2.2.2. In (a), the words 'they may however be provided' should be changed to: 'they must be provided on request'.

2.2.3. The provision in (d) for imports from third countries where provisional data can be given where necessary, providing the full data are available within 6 days. In principle scientific equipment now exists for supplying this information instantaneously. However such equipment is expensive and delicate to operate. While apparently some Member States have such equipment in general use, this is not the case in many other States. Where the equipment and expertise do not exist, product has to be held in the ports until the final result is available.

The Committee is not happy with the solution proposed by the Commission and would ask the Commission, if at all possible, to seek an alternative solution to achieve the same objective in regions where the facilities for rapid determination do not exist, for it is important for the purchaser and final user to be in possession of these data.

2.3.

Article 9

2.3.1. The Commission has taken the standard terminology for language of labelling that is used in other texts, in particular the labelling directive (79/112/EEC). However this has given rise to a good deal of difficulty including references to the Court of Justice.

2.3.2. For this proposal on animal feeds, the Committee therefore proposes the following wording:

'For the purpose of trade within the Community, the indications printed on the packaging, on the container or on a label attached thereto shall be given both in the language of the manufacturer of the feedingstuffs and in the language of the purchaser.'

2.4.

Article 11

A code-numbering system would be very useful and the Commission should seek an internationally agreed system, not one merely confined to the EU.

2.5.

Article 14

The Committee cannot endorse the proposal in this Article to use the Standing Committee for Feedingstuffs in a purely advisory capacity. It asks the Commission to retain the SCF as a regulatory committee.

2.6.

Article 18

Given the uncertainties of getting any directive through the procedure, all implementation timings should be calculated from the actual finalization of the Directive.

3.1.

Annex I - Part A - Point V

3.1.1. This lays down a general level of 14,5% water above which the moisture level must always be stated and of course scientifically determined.

3.1.2. The Committee disagrees with this. Some products such as skimmed milk powder deteriorate at levels as low as 10%, while others which are high in short chain carbohydrates keep well above 14,5%. Also for grain, the moisture level varies with the ambient relative humidity.

3.1.3. Instead of this single figure, the appropriate moisture levels should be given for the individual products in Part B of the Annex as appropriate.

Done at Brussels, 25 January 1995.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Carlos FERRER