Luxemburg, 09/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - The United Kingdom has lost its case against the European Parliament and the Council: the Court of Justice has decided that the legal basis for the 2003 EC Regulation on smoke flavourings in foodstuffs was indeed Article 95 of the EC Treaty. This treaty allows the Council, after receiving the opinion of the Parliament, to adopt by qualified majority all harmonisation measures necessary for the operation of the internal market (para 45). The authors of the Treaty wanted to give the community legislature sufficient discretion to assess the most appropriate means of harmonisation to come to the desired result in highly technical areas, said the Court. The United Kingdom contended that the appropriate legal basis was article 308 of the EC Treaty, which allows that, for the proper operation of the common market, the Council, on a unanimous vote and after consultation with the Parliament, could adopt appropriate provisions for actions not allowed for in the Treaty. The United Kingdom argument that the Regulation on smoke flavourings establishes a centralised procedure as well as the intervention of the European Food Safety Authority, which have nothing to do with the approximation of legislation, and therefore with article 95 of the EC Treaty. Regulation 2065/2003, whose validity was confirmed by the Court, was adopted on 10 November 2003, and provides for a community authorisation procedure for flavourings, general rules for use and safety prescriptions.
In a press release, the European Commission welcomed the judgment confirming the validity of a Regulation guaranteeing a high level of food safety and abolishing potential barriers to the internal market which existed when Member States each had their own divergent rules on flavourings used in meat, fish or snacks. The Commission was not directly involved in the trial but intervened on the side of the Parliament and the Council.