Brussels, 16/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - During the Agriculture Council on Monday 14 March in Brussels, Italy and other countries, including Spain and Portugal, described the voluntary British “traffic light” rating system for food labelling (complementary to the compulsory nutritional declaration) contravened the provisions in Regulation 1169/2011 involving consumer information about foodstuffs.
According to these countries, this labelling system has an impact on the internal market and distorts competition. The voluntary system set up in the United Kingdom in 2013 uses a traffic light labelling system with visual codes as regards energy value, fat, saturates, carbohydrates, sugars, protein and salt contained in every 100 g or portion of a given product. Consumers are also informed about the quantity (in grams) of the nutrients contained in a product portion. In certain cases, the calories are indicated by colours.
Italy had particular concerns that the British system penalised certain products that were above any suspicion, such as olive oil, tuna or milk. Several agricultural departments supported Italy's position, including those in Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Luxembourg. Germany was not totally convinced of the usefulness of this system but did not consider that it created any factors that could distort the internal market. France did not have any principled position to the system either but emphasised the need to avoid oversimplistic systems that stigmatised certain products.
The United Kingdom defended its system and emphasised that it respected the labelling regulation.
The European Commission pointed out that the regulation on consumer information authorise countries to have different labelling standards. The Commission will adopt the report at the end of December 2017 on implementation of this regulation and whether, if failings are observed, what action it will subsequently take. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)