Activites

• 1997/02/19 Final act published in Official Journal
  • Decision 1997/292
  • OJ L 048 19.02.1997, p. 0013
• 1996/12/19 Final act signed
• 1996/12/19 End of procedure in Parliament
• #1978
• 1996/12/09 Council Meeting
• 1996/10/23 Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading
  • T4-0514/1996 summary

    Parliament approved the common position of the Council without making any amendments. �

• 1996/10/08 Vote in committee, 2nd reading
• 1996/09/19 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 2nd reading
• #1937
• 1996/06/18 Council Meeting
  • 07368/1/1996 summary

    The common position of the Council incorporated the additional traditional foodstuffs whose insertion had been called for by the European Parliament, stating, in the case of the Danish products "leverpostej" and "Kodboller", the categories of additives in respect of which a prohibition could be maintained. It also added 3 traditional Italian foodstuffs, "Salame cacciatore", "mortadella" and "cotechino e zampone" and 1 Spanish one, "Lomo embuchado". The common position also incorporated the requested provisions concerning the designation of the foodstuffs in respect of which Member States could maintain their legislation on the subject. It may be noted that the Council stated that: - the term "traditional Greek" should not be applied to "'feta' cheese"; - the designation "traditional French bread", which could be translated into every language, did not need to be placed in inverted commas; - it was permitted to maintain the prohibition on all categories of additives in the products "traditional French goose and duck preserves ("confit")". �

• 1996/05/06 Modified legislative proposal published
  • COM(1996)0050 summary

    The amended Commission proposal incorporates Parliament's amendment to the definition of the foodstuffs listed in the Annex in respect of which Member States would be authorized to maintain in their legislation the prohibition on the use of certain additives. However, the Commission rejected the amendments concerning: - the requirement for labels to include the information that a foodstuff has been produced using traditional methods, as it took the view that it was up to the manufacturer to determine whether this should be mentioned; - the insertion of one Swedish and two Danish foodstuffs, as the original notifications referred only to public health grounds, and all public health problems were covered by the specific directives concerning additives.�

• 1996/01/16 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T4-0001/1996 summary

    In adopting the report by Mrs GROSSETETE (PPE, F), the European Parliament approved this proposal for a decision with the following amendments: - the Member States listed in the Annex to the Decision are authorized to maintain in their legislation the prohibition on the use of categories of additives in the production of foodstuffs where the label, if such labelling is possible, states that the foodstuff has been produced using traditional methods in the named Member State; - for each of the products listed, a note is added stating that they have been produced using traditional methods in the countries concerned; - three new products have been added to the list of foodstuffs: traditional Danish liver paté ('leverpastej'), nitrite, traditional Danish meatballs ('ködboller'), nitrite, and traditional Swedish fruit syrups, food colours. �

• 1996/01/15 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament summary

    The rapporteur, Mrs GROSSETETE, recalled that current Community legislation authorised Member States to maintain national laws prohibiting the use of various additives in the production of certain foodstuffs considered as traditional in their territory, provided that certain procedures and deadlines were met. Tight restrictions had been imposed on these measures at member-state level. The Commission therefore proposed laying down various criteria for determining whether a product was traditional or not, along with the national bans that could be left in place. The rapporteur stressed that there would not be any distortion of competition, since for one thing the products could still be produced using the said additives, though in such cases they would not be labelled as a ‘traditional product’. Thanks to an amendment tabled by the rapporteur, traditional products were to be known by the same name, for example traditional German beer, traditional Greek feta cheese and so on; the rapporteur also wanted to see Danish liver paté and meatballs and Swedish fruit syrups added to the list. Commissioner van den Broek was opposed to Amendment No 1, which sought to require the use of labels stating that the product had been ‘prepared using traditional methods’. He agreed with Amendment No 2, which specified that a note be added to each product stating that it was ‘traditional German’, ‘traditional Greek’, ‘traditional French’, etc. However, he could not accept Amendment No 3, which was aimed at including traditional Danish liver paté and meatballs, because the justification for this, namely the issue of public health, did not meet the criteria laid down within the context of the Directive.

• 1995/10/31 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A4-0278/1995
• 1995/05/15 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 1995/04/19 Legislative proposal published
  • COM(1995)0126 summary

    OBJECTIVE: to authorise the Member States to derogate from the various directives on additives in order to protect the particular methods of production of foodstuffs regarded as traditional which were manufactured within their territory. SUBSTANCE: the proposal for a decision authorised certain Member States to retain in their legislation prohibitions on the use of categories of additives in the production of the corresponding foodstuffs listed in the annex to the directive. The Member States and foodstuffs concerned were as follows: Germany: beer; France: traditional French bread, preserved truffles, preserved snails, goose, duck and turkey preserves ("confit"); Austria: "Bergkäse"; Finland: "Mämmi". �

Documents

• Legislative proposal published: COM(1995)0126
• Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading: A4-0278/1995
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T4-0001/1996
• Modified legislative proposal published: COM(1996)0050
• Council position published: 07368/1/1996
• Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading: T4-0514/1996
• : Decision 1997/292
• : OJ L 048 19.02.1997, p. 0013

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)