Regulation (EC) No 109/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 January 2008 amending Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods
Date: 2008-01-15
Institutions: Council of the European Union, European Parliament
Subjects: child, disease prevention, foodstuff, health policy, labelling

L 39/14

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Official Journal of the European Union

13.2.2008

REGULATION (EC) No 109/2008 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

amending Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods

of 15 January 2008

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE
EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Commu-
nity, and in particular Article 95 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and
Social Committee (1),

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251
of the Treaty (2),

Whereas:

(1) Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 of the European Parliament
and of the Concil (3) establishes rules for the use of claims
in the labelling, the presentation and the advertising of
foods.

(2) Health claims are prohibited unless they comply with the
general and specific requirements laid down by Regulation
(EC) No 1924/2006 and unless they are included in
Community lists of authorised health claims. Those lists of
health claims remain to be established following procedures
detailed in that Regulation. As a consequence, those lists
were not in force on 1 July 2007, the date of application of
that Regulation.

(3)

For this reason, Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 provides
for transitional measures for health claims other than those
referring to the reduction of disease risk and to children's
development and health.

(1) Opinion of 26 September 2007 (not yet published in the Official

Journal).

(2) Opinion of the European Parliament of 12 December 2007 (not yet
published in the Official Journal) and Council Decision of 11 January
2008.

(3) OJ L 404, 30.12.2006, p. 9. Corrected by OJ L 12, 18.1.2007, p. 3.

(4) Concerning health claims referring to the reduction of
disease risk, no transitional measure was needed. Because of
the prohibition of claims referring to the prevention, the
treatment and the cure of a disease by Directive 2000/13/
EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
20 March 2000 on the approximation of the laws of the
Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and
advertising of foodstuffs (4), and the introduction of the
new category of claims referring to the reduction of disease
risk by Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006, products carrying
such claims should not have been on the Community
market.

(5)

(6)

The category of claims referring to children's development
and health was introduced at a very late stage of the
procedure for the adoption of Regulation (EC) No 1924/
2006, without providing for transitional measures. How-
ever, products carrying such claims are already present on
the Community market.

In order to avoid disruption of the market, it is therefore
appropriate to submit claims
referring to children's
development and health to the same transitional measures
as the other health claims.

(7) Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 should therefore be

amended accordingly,

HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 is amended as follows:

1.

Article 14(1) shall be replaced by the following:

‘1. Notwithstanding Article 2(1)(b) of Directive 2000/13/
EC, the following claims may be made where they have
been authorised in accordance with the procedure laid
down in Articles 15, 16, 17 and 19 of this Regulation for
inclusion in a Community list of such permitted claims
together with all the necessary conditions for the use of
these claims:

(a)

reduction of disease risk claims;

(b)

claims
health.’;

referring to children's development

and

(4) OJ L 109, 6.5.2000, p. 29. Directive as last amended by Commission

Directive 2007/68/EC (OJ L 310, 28.11.2007, p. 11).

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Official Journal of the European Union

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2.

the introductory sentence of Article 28(6) shall be replaced
by the following:

Article 2

‘Health claims other
than those referred to in Arti-
cle 13(1)(a) and in Article 14(1)(a), which have been used
in compliance with national provisions before the date of
entry into force of this Regulation, shall be subject to the
following:’.

This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following
its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply from 1 July 2007.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Strasbourg, 15 January 2008.

For the European Parliament

The President

H.-G. PÖTTERING

For the Council

The President

J. LENARČIČ