Brussels, 16/12/2009 (Agence Europe) - During the Agriculture Council on Tuesday 15 December, the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers presented a report taking stock of the state of negotiations on the proposal concerning the provision of food information to consumers. Discussions are difficult, especially on the subject of the legibility of information on food packaging and on the responsibility of operators. The relevant European Parliament committee is expected to adopt its opinion at first reading in March 2010 at the earliest, with a view to a plenary vote in May, or June.
Despite many meetings of experts under Slovenian, French, Czech and Swedish EU Presidencies, the countries of the EU have still not managed to reach a common position. The Swedish Presidency has stressed that, despite the eight days of negotiation in recent months, many points remain outstanding.
During the Council, Italy highlighted several “very critical” points. Italy above all requests that EU countries should have the possibility to make the indication of a product's origin a compulsory label on packaging, especially for products that are not processed, such as poultry meat. Italy also calls for it to be possible to nutritional content, for which labelling is compulsory, to be estimated per portion and not solely per 100 grams or per 100 millilitres. Addressing the European commissioner for health, Androulla Vassiliou, the Netherlands expressed concern about the risk of excessive administrative constraints entailed by such a text.
The commissioner refused this criticism considering that his proposal seeks the “right balance” by enhancing consumer information without adding unnecessary burdens on food operators. She welcomed the support provided by member states to the project of imposing a minimum print size on food packaging. Ms Vassiliou, however, repeated the request of member states to return to the idea of imposing the presence of nutritional labelling on the front of the products. It is important, she said, for this information to appear as visibly as possible on products. (L.C./transl.jl)