Tories welcome delay on food labelling voting

The delay to further voting on food labelling legislation by a European Parliament (EP) specialist committee until the new parliament is formed in June was welcomed by conservative MEP John Bowis.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food safety (ENVI) last week voted to delay considering amendments to the Food Information Regulation (FIR) after an appeal by ENVI rapporteur Renate Sommer. She said more time was needed to properly deal with the huge volume of amendments that had been proposed.
The FIR’s delay until the Swedish presidency takes over from the Czech Republic in July had been predicted​ by Food Manufacture​.
Bowis, who is a member of the ENVI Committee, told Food Manufacture​: “I personally think a little more thinking and negotiating time would be sensible and might enable industry to come forward with solutions that could be adopted, rather than having one imposed on them.”
He added: “With over 1,300 mutually exclusive amendments it was impossible to complete First Reading in this Parliament. But the rapporteur, Renate Sommer, will continue to negotiate and find compromises for the new Parliament.”
European Commission (EC) head of food law, nutrition and labelling Basil Mathioudakis had already acknowledged a delay to the FIR was likely until after the EP elections in June. He was speaking at a labelling debate in Brussels in February organised by the Food and Drink Federation (FDF). At the same meeting, Sommer told Food Manufacture​ she was confident of being re-elected as an MEP and as ENVI rapporteur on the FIR.
Bowis predicted the guideline daily amount (GDA) labelling system would be selected as part of the legislation - possibly with colour coding as an option. However, he forecast that Member States would be able “to add a traffic light variant if they so wish”.
“Whether any of this is front of pack remains to be seen,” he added. “Perhaps the most likely is that the calories will be front and the rest back. There is also the question of whether carbohydrate should be among the GDAs - to meet the needs of, for example, those with diabetes.
“Another unresolved question is whether portions or 100 grams should be used. The former may be difficult to define in some cases but the mere thought of 100 grams of Marmite makes you think the latter is absurd!”