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Fears that additives could be refused with no appeal
October 31, 2008
Additives, flavourings and enzymes could be refused authorisation in future on a simple whim of the European Commission with their producers having no right to appeal, warned a food law expert at the ERA conference in Parma.
Lawyer Markus Grube said that the common authorisation system directive in the recently adopted food improvement agents package of legislation grants the Commission the right not to follow through with an application for approval of an additive, flavouring or enzyme.
Grube said that the Commission could decide that it sees no need for a particular substance and will not refer the application to the European Food Safety Authority for an opinion, thereby launching the authorisation procedure.
As there would be no official Commission decision rejecting the application, the manufacturer would have no legal means of appeal, Grube said.
"It's very, very unclear so we have to wait for the application [of the directive]," the German lawyer told the conference.
Grube also underlined that the food improvement agents package represents a "paradigm shift in regulatory approach" in some Member States, notably Germany. Under the package every substance is forbidden if it is not specifically permitted, whereas before in Germany at least, "everything was permitted unless explicitly forbidden."
The German lawyer underlined that the "strict consequence of positive lists" was that if something was not authorised it could not be used.
Grube pointed to European Court of Justice case law on cosmetics that found that positive lists of approved substances could be an unnecessary constraint on the free movement of goods. "Are we going in the direction of absolute legalisation of foodstuffs?" Grube asked.
Looking at the future workload following on from the package, Grube noted that there is a lot of scientific evidence on additives, many flavourings had been partially evaluated "but the big task will be to evaluate the enzymes I think."
Related link : Fears that additives could be refused with no appeal
