Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council correcting Directive 2002/2/EC amending Council Directive 79/373/EEC on the circulation of compound feedingstuffs COM(2006) 340 final — 2006/0117 (COD)
Date: 2006-10-26
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: animal nutrition, consumer information, labelling, manufactured feedingstuffs, marketing, raw material

C 324/34

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

30.12.2006

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a Decision of the
European Parliament and of the Council correcting Directive 2002/2/EC amending Council Directive
79/373/EEC on the circulation of compound feedingstuffs

COM(2006) 340 final — 2006/0117 (COD)

(2006/C 324/15)

On 10 July 2006 the Council decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under
Article 152 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the abovementioned proposal.

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 8 September 2006. The rapporteur was
Mr Nielsen.

Due to the renewal of the Committee's term of office, the Plenary Assembly decided to vote on this opinion
at its October plenary session and appointed Mr Nielsen as rapporteur-general under Rule 20 of the Rules
of Procedure.

At its 430th plenary session, held on 26 October 2006, the European Economic and Social Committee
adopted the following opinion by 85 votes in favour with one abstention.

1. Background

1.1
The 1979 rules on the production and circulation of
compound feedingstuffs for livestock have been subject to a
number of amendments relating, among other things, to label-
ling and composition information (1). As a result, the balance
between confidentiality (as advocated by the feedingstuffs
industry) and full disclosure of content and composition (as
advocated by the farming sector) has also shifted a number of
times.

1.2
The labelling rules were harmonised in 1990 and stipu-
lated that the relevant feed materials should be listed out in
descending order by weight, without any obligation to declare
the actual quantities involved. Following the BSE (bovine spongi-
form encephalopathy) and dioxin crises, it was decided in 2002
to introduce so-called ‘open labelling’ to provide both quantita-
tive and qualitative content information. Under these arrange-
ments, it became mandatory to declare the percentages of mate-
rials used in descending order by weight, with a tolerance of
15 % of the declared value. Provision was also made to commu-
nicate the exact percentages by weight of feed materials used in
the compound feedingstuffs, at the customer's request (2).

1.3
This requirement was referred to the Court of Justice for
a preliminary ruling in the context of the examination of a
number of requests by the feedingstuffs industry for the annul-
ment or suspension of the relevant national rules. In its judg-
ment handed down on 6 December 2005 (3)
the Court of
Justice largely supported the position of the EU institutions, not
least as regards the validity of the directive. However, under the

(1) Council Directive 79/373/EEC on the circulation of compound feeding-

stuffs and subsequent amendments.

(2) Directive 2002/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
28 January 2002, which entered into force in the Member States from
November 2003.

(3) Joined cases C-453/03, C-11/04, C-12/04 and C-194/04.

principle of proportionality, the Court did declare invalid the
obligation to inform customers, on request, of the exact percen-
tages by weight of feed materials used in the compound feeding-
stuffs. Among other things, the Court found that the obligation
could not be justified by the objective of protecting public
health and went beyond what is necessary to attain that objec-
tive.

Against

that backdrop,

1.4
the Commission is therefore
proposing a ‘correcting Decision’ taking account of the principle
that amending acts should not be amended themselves but that
they may, however, be corrected. According to the Commission,
this ‘will guarantee transparency and clarity of Community law
while at the same time not imposing a direct obligation on the
Member States to change their national legislation, as they are
in any case obliged to take all appropriate measures under their
national legal systems to ensure fulfilment of the Court's judg-
ment’.

2. The EESC's comments

Justice ruling and,

from the comment cited above,

The EU feedingstuffs industry is well aware of the Court
2.1
the
of
Commission recognises that
the correction has no practical
implications. However, the EESC feels that the rules must reflect
the current legal position and thus supports the Commission's
proposed correction.

is important

the principle of

The EESC also supports

‘open
2.2
compounds’ which facilitates user choice and is also conducive
to competition in this area.
for agricultural
It
producers to know as accurately as possible what is contained
in the compounds, not only in terms of the actual feed compo-
sition alone, but also so as to be able to compare prices and
quality. The arguments advanced by the feedingstuffs industry
— including the demand for confidentiality in the interests of
market competition and possible patenting — appear to carry
less weight in the light of the experience gained to date in the
compound feedingstuffs market.

30.12.2006

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 324/35

That said, the EESC does recognise that special arrange-
2.3
ments apply in individual cases and to quite specific compound
in fish farming (4). The EESC
feedingstuffs used, for instance,
would therefore ask the Commission, in interests of confidenti-
ality vis-à-vis ongoing technological developments, to consider
exempting a small number of special compounds from the
requirement to declare the percentages of materials used in
descending order by weight. However, any such provision must
be applicable in exceptional cases only and only where abso-
lutely necessary.

2.4
In practical terms, the provision to declare the percen-
tages of materials used by weight, with a tolerance of 15 % of
the declared value, is by and large warranted. Where it is, in
practice, impossible to check lower quantities (e.g. 10 %) with
this kind of accuracy, the national inspection authorities must
be able to carry out checks using company documentation.

Brussels, 26 October 2006.

It is sometimes claimed that it is, in practice, impossible
2.5
to analyse the content of a compound. This is not true —
allowing for the exception mentioned above — since labora-
tories are in place in all the Member States that are perfectly
able to perform this task quite satisfactorily.

2.6
Last but not least, the EESC feels that, in the interests of
intra-Community trade and compliance with EU rules in this
field, it is vital that Member State authorities monitor the rele-
vant provisions and observe them fully — something that has
not always been the case in the past. The Commission should,
with the help of the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO), show
more commitment to meeting its obligations in this regard than
it has done so far.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Dimitris DIMITRIADIS

(4) In fish farming, for instance, the different fish species have specific
needs. There are also considerable differences in the composition of the
by-products from the fisheries sector and the fish industry used as raw
materials in the compounds.