Activities of Sylvie GUILLAUME related to 2020/2260(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on a Farm to Fork Strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system
Amendments (42)
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Welcomes the fact that the aimambition of the Farm to Fork Strategy and the fact that its aim is to establish a sustainable, healthy and resilient food system which benefits consumers in the EU;
Amendment 13 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Welcomes the fact that the aim of the Farm to Fork Strategy is to establish a sustainable, healthy and resilient food system which benefits all consumers in the EU;
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Shares the view that the COVID- 19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of a robust and resilient food system that functions in all circumstances, and is capable of ensuring access to a sufficient supply of affordable food for European consumers; stresses, in this respect, the need to preserve the smooth functioning of the single market, and in particular the movement of foodstuffs, including during health crises; stresses, too, that the pandemic must not be used as an excuse to scale down ambitions, given that sustainability and health are interconnected issues;
Amendment 19 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Considers that promoting healthy and sustainable food consumption calls for changes to diets, production and distribution systems, and internal trade; considers, however, that consumers should not be solely responsible for making this transition; stresses, too, that the choice of healthy and sustainable food consumption must be accessible, affordable, understandable and clear for all consumers;
Amendment 33 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Notes that price, lack of knowledge, unclear information and a limited choice of products are some of the obstacles to more sustainable food; approves the strategy’s aim of ensuring ‘that ultimately the most sustainable food also becomes the most affordable’; suggests, therefore, that prices need to be thoroughly reviewed so that they more fairly reflect the long-term costs for consumers and society, health systems and the environment; calls on governments, the European Commission and associations to make consumers aware that having more sustainable food is not necessarily more expensive;
Amendment 39 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 b (new)
Paragraph 2 b (new)
2b. Stresses the need to conduct consultations and impact analyses on the measures envisaged, and to work with and support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and cooperative systems in order to involve them in this transition and reduce the negative impacts for those who commit to this approach;
Amendment 47 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the Commission to step up its support for regional food systems and short supply chains, which act as a source of fresh, sustainable and better quality products for consumers; takes the view that legislation on European public procurement should be revised in order to foster local, high-quality food supply systems; suggests establishing more flexible criteria for the introduction of local and regional products in public procurement, particularly by adopting the zero-kilometre principle in school canteens;
Amendment 52 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the Commission to step up its support for regional and local food systems, small producers and short supply chains, which act as a source of fresh, sustainable and better quality products for consumers; takes the view that legislation on European public procurement should be revised in order to foster local, high-quality food supply systems;
Amendment 64 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Urges the Commission to promote alternative business models, such as consumer-friendly cooperative schemes; supports the adoption of tax incentives to encourage consumers to opt for healthy and sustainable diets;
Amendment 82 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Supports the establishment of a governance framework and a code of conduct for food and retail businesses, in order to make them accountable and aware of the importance of sustainability and health; considers, however, that binding rules are needed to reduce the marketing and advertising of unhealthy food, particularly to children;
Amendment 92 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Welcomes the Commission’s initiative to promote healthier diets by introducing nutritional profiles, which should encourage healthier product reformulations and prevent misleading claims about health benefits, accompanied by mandatory and harmonised labelling of the nutritional value of foods on the front of packaging; stresses the importance of informing consumers and making information clearer, particularly by using a tool that is easy to understand and scientifically sound; points out, in this respect, that the Nutri-Score adopted in five European countries to date is one of the most effective ways for consumers to compare products and choose healthier food;
Amendment 98 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Welcomes the Commission’s initiative to promote healthier diets accessible to all European citizens by introducing nutritional profiles, accompanied by mandatory and harmonised labelling of the nutritional value of foods on the front of packaging in order to correctly inform the consumer and to contribute to the reduction of the population's diseases and to ensure a healthy generation;
Amendment 99 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Welcomes the Commission’s initiative to promote healthier diets by introducing nutritional profiles, accompanied by mandatory and harmonised labelling of the nutritional value of foods on the front of packaging; points out there are several front of pack nutritional labelling schemes in use in Member States, which has an impact on the cohesion and functioning of the internal market;
Amendment 113 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 23 a (new)
Citation 23 a (new)
- having regard to its resolution of 11 February 2015 on country of origin labelling for meat in processed food1a, __________________ 1a OJ C 310, 25.8.2016, p. 15–18.
Amendment 114 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 23 b (new)
Citation 23 b (new)
- having regard to its resolution of 12 May 2016 on mandatory indication of the country of origin or place of provenance for certain food1a, __________________ 1a OJC 76, 28.2.2018, p. 49–53.
Amendment 123 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Regards it as essential, further, to keep consumers better informed by introducing mandatory origin labelling of food, which would be broadened to cover animal welfare, sustainability and pesticide residue levels; stresses that imported products which do not meet European environmental or health standards threaten consumer health and create unfair competition for European producers;
Amendment 129 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Stresses that Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 requires that where the origin of a food is given and is different from the one of its primary ingredient, the origin of the primary ingredient shall be given or at least indicated as being different to the origin of the food; points out that in practice that means that products whose primary ingredients are not locally or regionally sourced can be marketed as such if the origin of said non-local primary ingredients is indicated in small print; underlines that there is an imbalance between the visibility of marketing practices that use national, regional and local names and symbols for products whose primary ingredients are not nationally, regionally or locally sourced and EU labelling requirements; considers this to be detrimental to the consumers' right to be properly informed and potentially misleading; calls on the Commission to rectify that imbalance;
Amendment 148 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 37 a (new)
Citation 37 a (new)
- having regard to Council Presidency Conclusions of 15 December 2020 on front-of-pack nutrition labelling, nutrient profiles and origin labelling,
Amendment 155 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Welcomes the Commission’s announcement that it will revise the food contact materials legislation to improve consumer safety and public health;
Amendment 164 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Calls on the Commission to clarify the current legislation on use-by dates, in order to reduce food waste; notes that it is eagerly awaiting the reference scenario for reducing food waste throughout the EU;
Amendment 170 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Supports the Commission in its efforts to combat food fraud and counterfeiting, which misleads consumers and distorts competition in the internal market, and regards it as essential to make the penalties imposed on fraudsters more dissuasive and to earmark sufficient resources so that checks on product quality conformity can be stepped up;
Amendment 171 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Supports the Commission in its efforts to combat food fraud, which misleads consumers and distorts competition in the internal market, and regards it as essential to make the penalties imposed on fraudsters more dissuasive and to earmark sufficient resources so that checks can be stepped up, including during the pandemic;
Amendment 361 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
Amendment 404 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas the European food system has played a crucial role during the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating its resilience with farmers, processors and retailers working together under difficult conditions, including lockdowns, to ensure that European consumers continue to have access to safe, affordable, and high quality products without impediment; whereas the COVID-19 crisis, nevertheless, has highlighted the limits and weaknesses of globalised and intricate food supply chains, and has shown that over- specialisation of agricultural production leaves countries more vulnerable to trade restrictions and sudden shifts in consumer demand;
Amendment 480 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E h (new)
Recital E h (new)
Amendment 664 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 b (new)
Paragraph 2 b (new)
2b. Calls on the Commission to use the farm to fork strategy to build a truly long-term vision for Europe’s sustainable and competitive food system, able to guarantee access to healthy and quality products through binding targets for agriculture on biodiversity, climate, air pollution, water pollution, pesticides use and land degradation, while addressing sustainability issues around consumption, health and trade and safeguarding a high level of animal health and welfare, and at the same time promoting reciprocity of EU production standards with all commercial partners;
Amendment 724 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Welcomes the decision to revise the directive on the sustainable use of pesticides and the reduction targets for pesticides, fertilisers, and antibiotics; stresses the importance of ending the production and export of pesticides whose use is prohibited in Europe, but which continue to be produced in Europe for distribution throughout the world, given the European public’s concern about the use of pesticides in food production and their impact on human health and biodiversity around the world; emphasises the importance of pursuing these targets through holistic and circular approaches, such as agroecological practices; insists that each Member State should establish robust quantitative reduction targets, accompanied by well- defined support measures ensuring accountability at all levels to help reach these targets; reiterates its call for the translation into legislation of the above targets and objectives and calls on the Commission to clarify how it will deal with individual Member States’ contributions to Union-wide targets and to clarify the baselines for these targets;
Amendment 1271 #
8a. Calls the Commission and the Council to use the ongoing negotiations on the Common Market Organisation Regulation to support and deepen the amendments voted by the Parliament on issues directly linked with the farm to fork strategy as those related to improve primary producers bargaining power in the food chain, to enhance marketing standards and labelling of agricultural products, to improve transparency on food markets in response to the aims of the “Contingency plan for ensuring food supply and food security”, and to ban imports of products that not comply with EU standards in terms of social rights, human health and environmental protection ; considers that to incite farmers to take the risks of the sustainable transition requires to give them more guarantees about the benefits they could obtain from their efforts by rebalancing bargaining powers and by a better management of market crisis;
Amendment 1688 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16a. Highlights that 1 in 2 adults is overweight or obese in the EU, demonstrating the need for stronger action to help stem this public health crisis; recognises that front-of-pack nutritional labels have been identified by international public health bodies such as the World Health Organisation as a key tool to help consumers make more informed and healthier food choices; calls on the Commission to ensure that the EU mandatory front-of-pack nutritional label is developed based on robust, independent scientific evidence and demonstrated consumer understanding; stresses furthermore that to facilitate comparison across products, it should include an interpretive element and be based on uniform reference amounts such as per 100g/100ml;
Amendment 1694 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16a. Calls for a mandatory EU-wide front-of-pack nutrition labelling system based on independent and sound science; indicates in this regard that the Nutri- Score label, which has been adopted by several EU Member States, industrial players and consumer associations, is to date the easiest label to understand nutritional information, makes consumers to choose healthier foods, incentivises manufacturers to improve the nutritional quality of their products and thus participates in the fight against the increase in cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes;
Amendment 1734 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Welcomes the Commission’s commitment to revise the EU legislation on food contact materials (FCM); reiterates its call to revise the legislation on FCM in line with the regulation on the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (REACH), as well as classification, labelling and packaging regulations, and to insert, without further delay, specific provisions to substitute endocrine disrupting chemicals; stresses that equal safety requirements should be applied to virgin and recycled materials;
Amendment 1743 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 a (new)
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Regards it as essential, further, to keep consumers better informed by introducing mandatory origin labelling of food, which would be broadened to cover animal welfare, sustainability and pesticide residue levels;
Amendment 1753 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Welcomes the fact that the strategy rightly recognises the role and influence of the food environment in shaping consumption patterns and the need to make it easier for consumers to choose healthy and sustainable diets; reiterates the importance of promoting sustainable diets by raising consumer awareness of the impacts of consumption patterns and providing information on diets that are better for human health and have a lower environmental footprint, such as products from short local and regional supply chains; underlines the important role which consumer organisations can play in this regard; underlines that food prices must send the right signal to consumers; welcomstresses, therefore, the strategy’s objective that the healthy and sustainable choice should become the most affordable one; at the shift to a more sustainable food system cannot rely solely on individual choices by consumers and that a range of actions, including regulation, is needed to make food production more sustainable by default;
Amendment 1791 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. Highlights that too many unsubstantiated and even misleading fair and/or environmental claims are being used on food, creating confusion among consumers and making it difficult for them to identify the products that are fair for producers and/or more environmentally friendly; calls on the Commission to introduce a new regulatory framework establishing a clear, swift and efficient pre-approval procedure for all fair and/or green claims and labels, taking into account the experience gained in the application of the system already in place for health and nutrition claims; stresses that such framework would protect consumers from untruthful green claims while ensuring that businesses who genuinely strive for more environment friendly operations are duly rewarded for their efforts, especially farmers that are at the root of food chains;
Amendment 1796 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Amendment 1801 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 b (new)
Paragraph 18 b (new)
18b. Underlines that the affordability of healthy and sustainable food choices is the main obstacle to the adoption by consumers of healthy and sustainable diets and that food prices must send the right signal to consumers; welcomes, therefore, the strategy’s objective that the healthy and sustainable choice should become the most affordable one; invites the Commission to launch a study to quantify in economic terms the environmental and societal (including health-related) costs associated with the production and consumption of the most consumed food products on the EU market, as a first step towards moving towards true cost accounting for food;1a _________________ 1aSpecial Eurobarometer 505. Making our food fit for the future – Citizens’ expectations. October 2020. ‘Healthy, sustainable food choices are affordable’ was the answer most frequently given by consumers when asked about what would help them to adopt a healthy and sustainable diet.
Amendment 1804 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 c (new)
Paragraph 18 c (new)
18c. Welcomes the future legislative proposals to improve consumer information on food origin; highlights that origin is the most important factor for Europeans when buying food; reminds the Commission of the Parliament’s resolutions of 11 February 2015 and 12 May 2016, where Parliament called for mandatory origin labelling of drinking milk, dairy products and meat used as an ingredient in processed foods; adds furthermore that mandatory labelling of origin should also be extended to seafood products, not least those that are preserved or processed;
Amendment 1808 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 d (new)
Paragraph 18 d (new)
Amendment 1813 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 f (new)
Paragraph 18 f (new)
18f. Stresses that Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 requires that where the origin of a food is given and is different from the one of its primary ingredient, the origin of the primary ingredient shall be given or at least indicated as being different to the origin of the food; points out that in practice that means that products whose primary ingredients are not locally or regionally sourced can be marketed as such if the origin of said non-local primary ingredients is indicated in small print; underlines that there is an imbalance between the visibility of marketing practices that use national, regional and local names and symbols for products whose primary ingredients are not nationally, regionally or locally sourced and EU labelling requirements; considers this to be detrimental to the consumers' right to be properly informed and potentially misleading; calls on the Commission to rectify that imbalance;
Amendment 1816 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 g (new)
Paragraph 18 g (new)
18g. Points out that Directive 2001/110 regulates that honey sold on European markets is either labelled as coming from a specific country, as ‘EU’ or as ‘non- EU’, or as both ‘EU and non-EU’ honey blends. In both non-EU cases, blended or not, the consumer is not aware whether the product is actually genuine EU standard quality honey, meaning without added sugar syrup, for example; calls on the Commission and Member States to support the EU beekeeping sector by reinforcing import inspections in order to prevent imports of adulterated honey; considers that the current rules are not fit for purpose as they provide ambiguous information to consumers and facilitate the import and sale of low quality or adulterated honey in the EU; calls on the Commission to propose legislative changes for honey labelling rules that will result in better consumer information and support the EU beekeeping sector;
Amendment 1968 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Calls for an in depth revision of public procurement legislation, including minimum mandatory criteria in schools and other public institutions to encourage organic and local food production especially from SMEs and to promote more healthy diets by creating a food environment that enables consumers to make the healthy choice, and producers to be engaged in long term relationship with public institutions; insists that private out- of-home catering should also be sensitised in view of their importance;
Amendment 2073 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24 a (new)
Paragraph 24 a (new)
24a. Highlights with concern the downward trend across the EU in both the number of official food controls undertaken and the resources allocated to them; supports the Commission in its efforts to combat food fraud; considers that the punishment should fit the crime in cases of intentional food fraud and calls on Member States to adequately reflect that principle in national legislation, in line with the Official Controls Regulation 2017/625;