Brussels, 24/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - Community legislation on labelling of foodstuffs (directive 2000/13/European Commissioner) has been formally amended and should allow citizens to find out from an exhaustive list the ingredients in foodstuffs and alcoholic drinks offered to the consumer, thanks to the labelling of products. This modification was what the European Parliament aimed for. Called on to speak on the amendments voted on in the second reading by the latter on 2 July, the Council agreed to the amendment of the common position in order to guarantee the updating of the list of ingredients likely to cause allergies or adverse reactions among consumers and which figure in the Annex to the directive (Annex Iia).
Directive 2000/13/European Commissioner as amended by the Parliament with assent of the Council is now reputedly adopted (the Spanish delegation declared that the directive did not have its support).
Adoption stipulates that in a time scale up to nine months after the entry into force of the direction, scientific studies are notified to the Commission establishing that the ingredients are on the list in the annex are not allergy provoking. It will then be up to the Commission to consul the European Food Safety Authority and then, at the latest a year after the entry into force of the directive, adoption of a list of ingredients to withdraw from the annex at the latest, four years after the entry into force of this legislation.
The objective of this directive is to abolish the 25% rule according to which, up till now, components in ingredients in foodstuffs or drinks in less than 25% of a product, do not have to figure in the label of the product and which risks concealing allergy forming substances.