The Development of EU Food Law
Subsequent to the collaboration that was started between different West European nations in an attempt to protect peace which was set up in 1949, six nations established the European Economic Community in 1958 to support closer collaboration.[92] This supra-national organization evolved to become the European Union (EU), currently comprising 28 Member States which cooperate closely on a political, economic, and monetary level.[93] In 1957, by signing the Treaty of Rome, a single market was established throughout the different Member States in which goods, services, people, and money can move freely.[94] To ensure that within this single market, a level playing field is established throughout the different Member States, various pieces of legislation have been developed within the EU that deal with economic, monetary, and political issues.[95] Today, the EU’s executive body (the European Commission) can propose to regulate certain areas, after which the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament are empowered to further develop and adopt such legislation.[96] The Commission and the Member States themselves implement the developed legislation.
By becoming a member of the EU, the Member States subscribe to all benefits as well as commitments of the partnership but remain autonomous states[97]: legislation developed at Union level is enforced by national authorities.The free movement of foodstuffs throughout the European Community was one of the key areas for which the free movement of goods in the internal market was essential, as established by the Treaty of Rome signed in 1957.[98]
In 1964, the first specific European legal act dealing with foods was developed, which aimed to harmonize hygiene requirements for meat production.[99] Scientific and technological developments in the production of, among other things, food additives and flavorings resulted in the 1970s in the development of legislation to deal with these specific substances, as well as in rules upon other ingredients that became specifically prohibited or permitted.[100] The 1974 case ruling of the Court of Justice in the Cassis de Dijon Case[101] introduced an essential principle in European food law: the principle of mutual recognition.
Due to this principle, Member States were no longer allowed to prohibit the sale of food products that were lawfully produced and marketed in another Member State, because these products should be able to move freely through the internal market.[102] In 1985, a new approach to dealing with food on a European level was decided upon, because Member States were shown to be unable to unanimously develop specific legislation for foods. Therefore, from 1987, newly adopted legislation on foods would mainly result in ensuring that food products would be labeled into more detail to guarantee consumers would be able to make a well-informed choice.[103] The 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which adjusted the EU treaties again, introduced a new general objective of food law: food legislation should require a “high level of health protection”.[104] Different EU-wide food scares in the 1990s, including the BSE crisis and the dioxin crisis, however, led to the call to radically reform food law.[105] Where EU food law mainly focused on the harmonization of national legislation to reduce barriers to trade before these crises, the scandals identified that reducing trade barriers could not be the prevailing objective of food law anymore: protecting consumers from food hazards and from being misled should be the main aim of European food legislation.[106]As a first step in response to these major food scares, the EC presented their Green Paper on the general principles of food law in the European Union25 in 1997. Following from this advisory paper, the Commission’s White Paper on Food Safety of 200026 described 84 action points to develop and modernize appropriate food and feed (safety) legislation. This resulted in the development of a new framework regulation for foods, known as the General Food Law (GFL, Regulation (EC) No 178/2002) that was published in 2002 and last updated in 2019 by Regulation 2019/1381, the Transparency Regulation.27 The GFL is considered the cornerstone of European food law today by providing a framework for national and European legislation on food and all related issues.28 Next to describing the general principles, requirements, and definitions of food, the GFL also establishes the EFSA. EFSA is the independent European scientific agency that provides scientific advice as well as scientific and technical support on all aspects concerning food and feed safety. 29 Advice from EFSA can be found in opinions and guidance documents that are requested and used by the different EU institutions and Member States.
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