WRITTEN QUESTION E-1159/00

by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(11 April 2000)

Subject: White Paper on Food Safety and the European Food Authority

The White Paper on Food Safety (COM(1999) 719 final) was published in January 2000. Chapter 4 is concerned with establishing a European Food Authority (EFA). Chapter 5 considers legislation on food safety.

Labelling has become a trade policy issue in many different fields including food safety. The Commission is seeking multilateral guidelines on labelling (section 99). It makes sense to use the same labelling rules for imported products as for products produced in the EU.

Will the Commission seek to ensure that multilateral labelling guidelines are at least equivalent to EU rules? If so, has any action already been taken on these lines in an international context? If not, why is the Commission opposed to multilateral labelling guidelines of equivalent value and what alternatives are available to the Commission for applying the same labelling rules to imported food as to food produced in the EU?

Answer given by Mr Lamy on behalf of the Commission

(16 June 2000)

The policy of the Commission is that compulsory labelling should be applied equally to both Community products and imports from third countries. Current Community legislation on food labelling already sets general and specific rules applicable to both Community and imported products. To date, these requirements have not been challenged. Nevertheless, there are important factors which should be taken into account in the context of international trade.

Labelling is a broad term which may have several objectives. These include consumer information about contents, methods of production and ingredients, and warnings about certain potential health risks (eg possible presence of allergens). Labelling is covered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) sanitary and phytosanitary agreement where it is related directly to food safety. Otherwise it is covered by the WTO agreement on technical barriers to trade (TBT), or even by the General agreement on tariffs and trade (GATT). The TBT agreement seeks to ensure that technical measures do not impede international trade. Trade-restrictive measures are allowed only if they are aiming at some legitimate objective. Consumer information is not explicitly mentioned in the TBT list so far, but health concerns and prevention of deceptive practices are explicitly mentioned. This does not mean that consumer information could not be considered as a legitimate objective under the TBT agreement because firstly the agreement authorizes labelling when it is used to prevent deceptive practices, and, secondly, because this list of legitimate objectives is not exhaustive.

The Commission wishes to see multilateral discussions with view to obtaining international agreement on these issues. The Codex Alimentarius has established general and specific standards for some categories of products. The Commission takes part in the Codex meetings and, together with the Member States, will continue to use its best endeavours to obtain agreement which meets the Community objectives with respect to the protection of human health and consumer information.