Brussels, 09/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - In Luxembourg on Tuesday 8 June, the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumers Council held a policy debate on the draft regulation on consumer information about foodstuffs. The debate at Council revealed agreement over the need for a minimum font size for information printed on food packaging. The environment, public health and food safety committee at the European Parliament disagrees and suggests in a draft report (see EUROPE 10101 for details) that other readability criteria should replace the font size for labelling. The EP will issue its opinion in first reading on 15 June 2010. Some countries, like France and Germany, recommended extra criteria like line spacing, letter colouring and letter contrast against the background colour.
A large number of countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Estonia and Poland) disagree with various aspects of the European Commission's draft setting out the responsibility of food operators according to their role in the food chain. The countries argue that no changes need to be made to the current situation, covered by EU Regulation s178/2002/EC (laying down general food law) and that the European Commission's new proposal would cause inspection problems. A handful of countries (Hungary, Portugal, Romania and Greece) were happy with the Commission's draft legislation.
Sweden and Finland recommended compulsory labelling of the energy values (calorie/joule content) of alcoholic drinks. A number of countries, like Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Austria and France, called for compulsory labelling of the origin of certain foodstuffs, while Germany called for special labelling of vegetarian and vegan versions of cheese and ham. (L.C./transl.fl)