263
European Food Law THE OPERATION OF EEC FOOD LAW
H. M. GOODALL, Head of Food Additives and Contaminants Standards
Division,
Ministry o f Agriculture, Fisheries and Food MAJOR principles underlie the food legislation of all Member States of the -M- Community. These are the protection of the health of the consumer and the prevention of fraud. The latter principle, of course, aims to protect both the purchaser and the honest manufacturer or seller. What is the point of harmonizing this legislation? Why is the Community doing it? If there is to be a Common Market, goods such as foods must be able to move freely as within a single national market and the movement of goods manufactured or marketed in one Community country must not be hindered by what are known as ’technical’ provisions, governing the safety, composition and labelling of food. Clearly there is no real possibility of simply abolishing those national laws that reflect differing economic and social systems, differing dietary patterns and consumer tastes. Community arrangements must therefore be created under which such provisions of national laws as directly affect the establishment or functioning of the Common Mar-
WO
T
ket can be harmonized. This does not mean that everyone must have the same law. Nor, in our opinion, does it mean that because some Member States have, for reasons which seem compelling to them, made highly complex and strict laws controlling, for example, particular foods or material and articles coming into contact with food, every Member State must follow suit in order to achieve harmonization and the removal of barriers to trade.
THE DIRECTIVE THE USUAL instrument for the harmonization of food laws is the Directive. Directives are adopted by the Council of Ministers, acting unanimously, on a proposal from the Commission. The European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee are normally consulted beforehand. The Directive is a flexible legal instrument in that it simply lays down the ultimate objectives, but leaves Member States free to decide how they will get there. This is important, because Member States’ legal systems vary as does the way in which their food laws are expressed. Consequently it is necessary to fit the provisions of a Directive properly into the interlocking pattern of an existing food law. Not to do so could lead to confusion and conflict of interpretation. Moreover, the terms in which Directives are expressed, whilst sometimes seeming on cursory reading to be very simple and straightforward, often prove on more detailed examination to leave areas of
doubt and ambiguity which have to be cleared up in national law. It may be that the only way to get unanimous agreement between nine Member States is in some cases not to be too specific! Be that as it may, experience has shown that putting the terms of a Directive into a national food law can be a complex and time-consuming exercise. A number of approaches to the preparation of Directives are possible and the Commission have to select the best approach in each case. The first thing to be decided is whether the Directive should be horizontal or vertical in its application. That is to say whether the Directive should deal across the board with a particular subject. e.g. food labelling or food additives; or whether it should deal simply with one class of food e.g. sugars or cocoa and chocolate or honey. Having decided whether the treatment should be horizontal or vertical, it is then necessary to decide on the content of the Directive. One flexible approach is the ’optional’ one, under which certain foods may move freely throughout the Community despite differences between the laws of the individual Member States. That is to say, a food may be produced either in accordance with the national law of the Member State in which it is to be consumed, or in accordance with the national law of the Member State to which it is being exported, or in accordance with the provisions of the ’optional’ Community Directive. In the latter case, the food could well be required to bear a mark, on the label so as to indicate that it has been produced in accordance with the Directive. Although Directives of this type have been mooted for some foods, none has yet been adopted. Another possibility is to go further and to apply the Directive to all foods of a particular class at present available to consumers in every Member State: this is usually known as ’total’
harmonization. In yet another case, a ’partial’ method may be followed that is to say only certain specified kinds of food of a particular class are harmonized in the Directive and Member States are left free to apply differing
compositional and labelling standards for the remaining foods in that class. In all these types of Directives, scope exists for the provision of national derogations. Such derogations may be for a limited period; or subject to review witiiin a specified period; or of unlimited duration. In developing Directives, the Community often takes account of work that is being carried out in some other international forum. For example, all the Member States are members of the Joint FAO/WHO
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at Freie Universitaet Berlin on May 8, 2015
264
Codex Alimentarius Commission and in developing Directives the Community is increasingly taking account of the International standards developed by the Codex. This can be beneficial, in that it allows international practices and opinions in the wisest sense to bear on Community law and prevents it becoming too
inward-looking. PREPARING A COMMUNITY DIRECTIVE IN ITS present form and content, the food law harmonization programme of the Community dates back to 1973 and contains some forty Directives. Only seven of the Directives in this programme have so far been adopted: but work is proceeding on a wide front on many of the remainder. The procedure for preparing a Community Directive runs through several stages. The procedure begins with the Commission preparing a draft of the Directive. In preparing this draft, the Commission will normally and will also have consult interested organizations meetings with experts from the Member States, chaired by a member of the Commission. This is also a stage where the opinions of the various interests, including -
consumers,
represented
at
Community level,
are
needed and it is up to the Commission to seek their views. For this purpose, the Commission has set up an Advisory Committee for Food on which are to be found representatives of European, not national, organizations of farmers, manufacturers, workers, distributors and consumers. Each of these groups is represented by two permanent members, appointed by the Commission, and four temporary members, who may be varied according to the subject under discussion. The Commission usually submits a draft Directive to the Advisory Committee at a stage when it is virtually ready to be submitted as a proposal to the Council of Ministers. It is for the Commission to decide when the time is ripe to send the proposal forward. After the proposed Directive has been sent to the Council, it is normally submitted to the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee for an opinion. The opinions of these institutions (which are published) may lead the Commission to amend its original proposals. At the Council, the Commission’s proposals are considered by an appropriate sub-group of the Working Party on Foodstuffs, which consists of delegates from the Member States and of representatives of the Commission. It should be borne in mind that Council Working Parties are chaired by an official of a Member State and not by the Commission. Chairmanship of Council Working Parties is undertaken by each Member State on a rotating basis for a period of six months. At the present time, the United Kingdom is providing a chairman for all the Working Parties: its period of office expires at the end of June 1977. There may very well be long discussions in the Council Working Party, since it is at this stage that the delegates of individual Member States have to commit their countries to accepting the terms of the draft Directive. It is usually at this stage that the question of derogations is settled. When it has been agreed in the Working Party, the draft Directive is sent to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (consisting of senior officials of Member States) before going to the Council of Ministers for adoption. This Committee normally only discusses the detail of the draft Directive when specific issues on which the national delegates have failed to agree are referred to it for a decision. The Committee of Permanent Representatives can, and &dquo;
t
often does, refer the outstanding issues to the ad hoc Working Party of Councillors and Attaches for further consideration. However, assuming that all outstanding difficulties are eventually settled the draft Directive then goes to the Council of Ministers for adoption. The Council of Ministers normally concerns itself with matters of detail only where it has not been possible to reach a final agreement on particular issues in any other forum. This very rarely happens. Usually, only matters of very considerable importance would need to be referred to the Council of Ministers for a decision. Once the Council has adopted the Directive it is sent to the individual Member States with the request that their national laws be amended to give effect to its intentions. It will, of course, be understood that throughout the whole of the procedures I have described there will have been very close and continuing consultation with organizations representing the interests of consumers, industry and the enforcement authorities and with individual firms as necessary. The Food Standards Committee, the Food Additives and Contaminants Committee and the Committee on Medical Aspects of Chemicals in Food and the Environment and its subcommittees independent expert bodies set up to will also have been advise Ministers on these matters fully consulted and their views will have been taken into account in negotiating the Directive. It should be noted that the Commission itself has set up a Scientific Committee for Foodstuffs to advise it on safety in use and to evaluate toxicological data. The United Kingdom has two members on this Committee. Both nationally and within the Community, account is also taken of the recommendations of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. All draft Directives are also scrutinized by Parliamentary Committees set up specifically for this purpose. These Committees can and do take evidence from interested organizations and from officials. The Committees can recommend that there should be a debate on any draft directive. Such debates have already taken place on the Labelling Directive and on the Jam Directive. Directives are not adopted until all these procedures have been exhausted. -
-
HOW DO DIRECTIVES BECOME LAW IN THE U.K.? So MUCH for the mechanism leading up to the adoption of a Directive. How do they find their way into United Kingdom food law? This is normally achieved by the making of regulations under the Food & Drugs Acts. There are separate Acts for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. When we start to make regulations there will be further extensive consultation with interested organizations on what are known as ’proposals for regulations’. These consultations are a statutory requirement laid down in the Food & Drugs Acts. Proposals for regulations usually set out in some detail the requirements that are going to be included in the law. Time is given for comment and very often meetings are arranged so as to discuss views expressed in the representations. When all the representations have been considered, regulations are made. In England and Wales regulations are signed by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State for Social Services. Regulations are made by what is known as the ’negative resolution’ procedure. That is to say, any Member of Parliament may, within forty sitting days of the regulations being laid before Parliament, pray that
.)’(....
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at Freie Universitaet Berlin on May 8, 2015
265
they be annulled.
In which case there could be a debate in the House. In practice, because of the very extensive consultation procedures described above, it is very rare for regulations to be prayed against. When the regulations are made, sufficient time is allowed for people who will have to comply with them to make the necessary arrangements. Time is also allowed so as to permit food already in the distributive chain which would not comply with the new law to work its way through to the end of the chain. Enforcement of the regulations is in the hands of food and drugs authorities, who generally speaking, are the top-tier local authorities, but District Councils also have a vital part to play. As a general rule, composition and labelling law is enforced by the trading standards officers, and hygiene by the environmental health officers but, since they are all on the same side in the or continuous battle to protect consumers, there is should be close liaison between them, so as to ensure that no aspect is overlooked. -
-
LONG-TERM EFFECT OF PROGRAMME WHAT IS likely to be the long-term effect of the food harmonization programme? If it continues on its present course, the effect on United Kingdom food law will be very extensive indeed. Full adoption of the programme would mean either amending or rewriting some fifteen existing regulations and making about twentyfour or twenty-five new sets of regulations, some of them of a highly complex nature and moving into areas that have not previously been the subject of specific law-making. It seems possible that the end result could be a doubling at least of United Kingdom food law. This is a very formidable task indeed and it is not unreasonable to question whether it will be possible for the existing enforcement structure properly to deal with this additional volume of work, which is bound to be expensive both in terms of manpower and money. Some might also question, indeed are already actively questioning, whether the benefits to be obtained from all this work are commensurate with the expense involved and the likely end results in terms of increased trade between the individual Member States. It is important to bear in mind that it is not the intention either of the Community or of the individual Member States that the harmonization of food laws should lead to the standardization of food or to the disappearance of foods which the consumers in various Member States have grown to know and love. The purpose of the food harmonization programme is to help food manufacturers to sell their products more easily across national frontiers and so to ensure that consumers in Member States have the opportunity to buy foods which have not previously found their way on to the national market and so to have a more interesting and diverse diet. Whilst in no way dissenting from the principle of removing non-tariff barriers to trade indeed this is an essential part of the creation of any -
Common Market - there is still ample scope for argument whether or not a particular Directive is really necessary or, if it is, whether it needs to be as complex as it sometimes sets out to be. All these matters are being actively discussed and will continue to be actively discussed in the years to come. The Commission have not the slightest wish to legislate for legislation’s sake, but the ultimate responsibility is on Member States to ensure that the programme of harmonization the Commission is given is one which is both sensible and practical. We in the United Kingdom are very conscious of t,his and are keeping a close eye on the situation, with a view to ensuring, so far as is possible in a Community where you cannot always have your own way all the time, that nothing is done that is not sensible and necessary for the protection of the consumer and of the reputable manufacturer and for the removal, in the simplest way, of those differences in food laws that are really inhibiting free trade between Member States. Indeed, the U.K. has, during its Presidency, already held a meeting of Member States of the Commission to discuss future policy, with the aim of concentrating all its limited resources on the main problem areas. There is now a general agreement that it would be sensible to give priority to ’horizontal’ directives dealing, for example, with such subjects as labeland additives and contaminants across the board, ling rather than piece-meal. There also seems to be developing a general agreement that the need for each ’vertical’ directive should be closely examined and that, if one is needed, its scope should be restricted to essential rather than to peripheral matters. This is very encouraging. The Community food harmonization programme has a direct bearing on, and therefore a direct relevance to, the food everyone eats. Everyone has therefore a direct interest in the way that the programme develops and has a contribution to make to what is bound to be a continuing debate on its scope and content. Certainly it is my hope that the debate will be wide-ranging and that people will not feel inhibited from taking part in it. All that I would ask is that it be conducted on the basis of fact and not fiction or prejudice. I hope that what I have been able to say today about the programmes and the way it works will provide a useful factual background, enabling people better to understand what can, to the non-expert, seem something of a mystery wrapped in an enigma. With better understanding will, I hope, come informed discussion and an active desire to make a positive contribution to ensuring that the programme develops on the right lines. I can assure you that those of us whose job it is to deal with the day-to-day workings of the programme and of its implementation in United Kingdom law actually welcome comments. Our complaint is not that people have too much to say to us. It is that in too many cases it is difficult to get people to say anything to us at all. I refuse to believe this is because they have nothing to say. We really do listen, so don’t think it would be a waste of time.
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at Freie Universitaet Berlin on May 8, 2015
European Food Law THE OPERATION OF EEC FOOD LAW
H. M. GOODALL, Head of Food Additives and Contaminants Standards
Division,
Ministry o f Agriculture, Fisheries and Food MAJOR principles underlie the food legislation of all Member States of the -M- Community. These are the protection of the health of the consumer and the prevention of fraud. The latter principle, of course, aims to protect both the purchaser and the honest manufacturer or seller. What is the point of harmonizing this legislation? Why is the Community doing it? If there is to be a Common Market, goods such as foods must be able to move freely as within a single national market and the movement of goods manufactured or marketed in one Community country must not be hindered by what are known as ’technical’ provisions, governing the safety, composition and labelling of food. Clearly there is no real possibility of simply abolishing those national laws that reflect differing economic and social systems, differing dietary patterns and consumer tastes. Community arrangements must therefore be created under which such provisions of national laws as directly affect the establishment or functioning of the Common Mar-
WO
T
ket can be harmonized. This does not mean that everyone must have the same law. Nor, in our opinion, does it mean that because some Member States have, for reasons which seem compelling to them, made highly complex and strict laws controlling, for example, particular foods or material and articles coming into contact with food, every Member State must follow suit in order to achieve harmonization and the removal of barriers to trade.
THE DIRECTIVE THE USUAL instrument for the harmonization of food laws is the Directive. Directives are adopted by the Council of Ministers, acting unanimously, on a proposal from the Commission. The European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee are normally consulted beforehand. The Directive is a flexible legal instrument in that it simply lays down the ultimate objectives, but leaves Member States free to decide how they will get there. This is important, because Member States’ legal systems vary as does the way in which their food laws are expressed. Consequently it is necessary to fit the provisions of a Directive properly into the interlocking pattern of an existing food law. Not to do so could lead to confusion and conflict of interpretation. Moreover, the terms in which Directives are expressed, whilst sometimes seeming on cursory reading to be very simple and straightforward, often prove on more detailed examination to leave areas of
doubt and ambiguity which have to be cleared up in national law. It may be that the only way to get unanimous agreement between nine Member States is in some cases not to be too specific! Be that as it may, experience has shown that putting the terms of a Directive into a national food law can be a complex and time-consuming exercise. A number of approaches to the preparation of Directives are possible and the Commission have to select the best approach in each case. The first thing to be decided is whether the Directive should be horizontal or vertical in its application. That is to say whether the Directive should deal across the board with a particular subject. e.g. food labelling or food additives; or whether it should deal simply with one class of food e.g. sugars or cocoa and chocolate or honey. Having decided whether the treatment should be horizontal or vertical, it is then necessary to decide on the content of the Directive. One flexible approach is the ’optional’ one, under which certain foods may move freely throughout the Community despite differences between the laws of the individual Member States. That is to say, a food may be produced either in accordance with the national law of the Member State in which it is to be consumed, or in accordance with the national law of the Member State to which it is being exported, or in accordance with the provisions of the ’optional’ Community Directive. In the latter case, the food could well be required to bear a mark, on the label so as to indicate that it has been produced in accordance with the Directive. Although Directives of this type have been mooted for some foods, none has yet been adopted. Another possibility is to go further and to apply the Directive to all foods of a particular class at present available to consumers in every Member State: this is usually known as ’total’
harmonization. In yet another case, a ’partial’ method may be followed that is to say only certain specified kinds of food of a particular class are harmonized in the Directive and Member States are left free to apply differing
compositional and labelling standards for the remaining foods in that class. In all these types of Directives, scope exists for the provision of national derogations. Such derogations may be for a limited period; or subject to review witiiin a specified period; or of unlimited duration. In developing Directives, the Community often takes account of work that is being carried out in some other international forum. For example, all the Member States are members of the Joint FAO/WHO
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at Freie Universitaet Berlin on May 8, 2015
264
Codex Alimentarius Commission and in developing Directives the Community is increasingly taking account of the International standards developed by the Codex. This can be beneficial, in that it allows international practices and opinions in the wisest sense to bear on Community law and prevents it becoming too
inward-looking. PREPARING A COMMUNITY DIRECTIVE IN ITS present form and content, the food law harmonization programme of the Community dates back to 1973 and contains some forty Directives. Only seven of the Directives in this programme have so far been adopted: but work is proceeding on a wide front on many of the remainder. The procedure for preparing a Community Directive runs through several stages. The procedure begins with the Commission preparing a draft of the Directive. In preparing this draft, the Commission will normally and will also have consult interested organizations meetings with experts from the Member States, chaired by a member of the Commission. This is also a stage where the opinions of the various interests, including -
consumers,
represented
at
Community level,
are
needed and it is up to the Commission to seek their views. For this purpose, the Commission has set up an Advisory Committee for Food on which are to be found representatives of European, not national, organizations of farmers, manufacturers, workers, distributors and consumers. Each of these groups is represented by two permanent members, appointed by the Commission, and four temporary members, who may be varied according to the subject under discussion. The Commission usually submits a draft Directive to the Advisory Committee at a stage when it is virtually ready to be submitted as a proposal to the Council of Ministers. It is for the Commission to decide when the time is ripe to send the proposal forward. After the proposed Directive has been sent to the Council, it is normally submitted to the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee for an opinion. The opinions of these institutions (which are published) may lead the Commission to amend its original proposals. At the Council, the Commission’s proposals are considered by an appropriate sub-group of the Working Party on Foodstuffs, which consists of delegates from the Member States and of representatives of the Commission. It should be borne in mind that Council Working Parties are chaired by an official of a Member State and not by the Commission. Chairmanship of Council Working Parties is undertaken by each Member State on a rotating basis for a period of six months. At the present time, the United Kingdom is providing a chairman for all the Working Parties: its period of office expires at the end of June 1977. There may very well be long discussions in the Council Working Party, since it is at this stage that the delegates of individual Member States have to commit their countries to accepting the terms of the draft Directive. It is usually at this stage that the question of derogations is settled. When it has been agreed in the Working Party, the draft Directive is sent to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (consisting of senior officials of Member States) before going to the Council of Ministers for adoption. This Committee normally only discusses the detail of the draft Directive when specific issues on which the national delegates have failed to agree are referred to it for a decision. The Committee of Permanent Representatives can, and &dquo;
t
often does, refer the outstanding issues to the ad hoc Working Party of Councillors and Attaches for further consideration. However, assuming that all outstanding difficulties are eventually settled the draft Directive then goes to the Council of Ministers for adoption. The Council of Ministers normally concerns itself with matters of detail only where it has not been possible to reach a final agreement on particular issues in any other forum. This very rarely happens. Usually, only matters of very considerable importance would need to be referred to the Council of Ministers for a decision. Once the Council has adopted the Directive it is sent to the individual Member States with the request that their national laws be amended to give effect to its intentions. It will, of course, be understood that throughout the whole of the procedures I have described there will have been very close and continuing consultation with organizations representing the interests of consumers, industry and the enforcement authorities and with individual firms as necessary. The Food Standards Committee, the Food Additives and Contaminants Committee and the Committee on Medical Aspects of Chemicals in Food and the Environment and its subcommittees independent expert bodies set up to will also have been advise Ministers on these matters fully consulted and their views will have been taken into account in negotiating the Directive. It should be noted that the Commission itself has set up a Scientific Committee for Foodstuffs to advise it on safety in use and to evaluate toxicological data. The United Kingdom has two members on this Committee. Both nationally and within the Community, account is also taken of the recommendations of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. All draft Directives are also scrutinized by Parliamentary Committees set up specifically for this purpose. These Committees can and do take evidence from interested organizations and from officials. The Committees can recommend that there should be a debate on any draft directive. Such debates have already taken place on the Labelling Directive and on the Jam Directive. Directives are not adopted until all these procedures have been exhausted. -
-
HOW DO DIRECTIVES BECOME LAW IN THE U.K.? So MUCH for the mechanism leading up to the adoption of a Directive. How do they find their way into United Kingdom food law? This is normally achieved by the making of regulations under the Food & Drugs Acts. There are separate Acts for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. When we start to make regulations there will be further extensive consultation with interested organizations on what are known as ’proposals for regulations’. These consultations are a statutory requirement laid down in the Food & Drugs Acts. Proposals for regulations usually set out in some detail the requirements that are going to be included in the law. Time is given for comment and very often meetings are arranged so as to discuss views expressed in the representations. When all the representations have been considered, regulations are made. In England and Wales regulations are signed by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State for Social Services. Regulations are made by what is known as the ’negative resolution’ procedure. That is to say, any Member of Parliament may, within forty sitting days of the regulations being laid before Parliament, pray that
.)’(....
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at Freie Universitaet Berlin on May 8, 2015
265
they be annulled.
In which case there could be a debate in the House. In practice, because of the very extensive consultation procedures described above, it is very rare for regulations to be prayed against. When the regulations are made, sufficient time is allowed for people who will have to comply with them to make the necessary arrangements. Time is also allowed so as to permit food already in the distributive chain which would not comply with the new law to work its way through to the end of the chain. Enforcement of the regulations is in the hands of food and drugs authorities, who generally speaking, are the top-tier local authorities, but District Councils also have a vital part to play. As a general rule, composition and labelling law is enforced by the trading standards officers, and hygiene by the environmental health officers but, since they are all on the same side in the or continuous battle to protect consumers, there is should be close liaison between them, so as to ensure that no aspect is overlooked. -
-
LONG-TERM EFFECT OF PROGRAMME WHAT IS likely to be the long-term effect of the food harmonization programme? If it continues on its present course, the effect on United Kingdom food law will be very extensive indeed. Full adoption of the programme would mean either amending or rewriting some fifteen existing regulations and making about twentyfour or twenty-five new sets of regulations, some of them of a highly complex nature and moving into areas that have not previously been the subject of specific law-making. It seems possible that the end result could be a doubling at least of United Kingdom food law. This is a very formidable task indeed and it is not unreasonable to question whether it will be possible for the existing enforcement structure properly to deal with this additional volume of work, which is bound to be expensive both in terms of manpower and money. Some might also question, indeed are already actively questioning, whether the benefits to be obtained from all this work are commensurate with the expense involved and the likely end results in terms of increased trade between the individual Member States. It is important to bear in mind that it is not the intention either of the Community or of the individual Member States that the harmonization of food laws should lead to the standardization of food or to the disappearance of foods which the consumers in various Member States have grown to know and love. The purpose of the food harmonization programme is to help food manufacturers to sell their products more easily across national frontiers and so to ensure that consumers in Member States have the opportunity to buy foods which have not previously found their way on to the national market and so to have a more interesting and diverse diet. Whilst in no way dissenting from the principle of removing non-tariff barriers to trade indeed this is an essential part of the creation of any -
Common Market - there is still ample scope for argument whether or not a particular Directive is really necessary or, if it is, whether it needs to be as complex as it sometimes sets out to be. All these matters are being actively discussed and will continue to be actively discussed in the years to come. The Commission have not the slightest wish to legislate for legislation’s sake, but the ultimate responsibility is on Member States to ensure that the programme of harmonization the Commission is given is one which is both sensible and practical. We in the United Kingdom are very conscious of t,his and are keeping a close eye on the situation, with a view to ensuring, so far as is possible in a Community where you cannot always have your own way all the time, that nothing is done that is not sensible and necessary for the protection of the consumer and of the reputable manufacturer and for the removal, in the simplest way, of those differences in food laws that are really inhibiting free trade between Member States. Indeed, the U.K. has, during its Presidency, already held a meeting of Member States of the Commission to discuss future policy, with the aim of concentrating all its limited resources on the main problem areas. There is now a general agreement that it would be sensible to give priority to ’horizontal’ directives dealing, for example, with such subjects as labeland additives and contaminants across the board, ling rather than piece-meal. There also seems to be developing a general agreement that the need for each ’vertical’ directive should be closely examined and that, if one is needed, its scope should be restricted to essential rather than to peripheral matters. This is very encouraging. The Community food harmonization programme has a direct bearing on, and therefore a direct relevance to, the food everyone eats. Everyone has therefore a direct interest in the way that the programme develops and has a contribution to make to what is bound to be a continuing debate on its scope and content. Certainly it is my hope that the debate will be wide-ranging and that people will not feel inhibited from taking part in it. All that I would ask is that it be conducted on the basis of fact and not fiction or prejudice. I hope that what I have been able to say today about the programmes and the way it works will provide a useful factual background, enabling people better to understand what can, to the non-expert, seem something of a mystery wrapped in an enigma. With better understanding will, I hope, come informed discussion and an active desire to make a positive contribution to ensuring that the programme develops on the right lines. I can assure you that those of us whose job it is to deal with the day-to-day workings of the programme and of its implementation in United Kingdom law actually welcome comments. Our complaint is not that people have too much to say to us. It is that in too many cases it is difficult to get people to say anything to us at all. I refuse to believe this is because they have nothing to say. We really do listen, so don’t think it would be a waste of time.
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at Freie Universitaet Berlin on May 8, 2015
