Push for EU-wide food labelling system meets stiff resistance from member states

The Agriculture and Fisheries (AGRIFISH) Council meeting on Tuesday, December 15^th will be the last – but certainly not the least – of these typically low-profile ministerial talks to take place in Brussels under the German Presidency of the EU Council, which ends on December 31st. November’s AGRIFISH meeting served as the venue for an unexpected showdown between agricultural ministers and the European Commission over Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans’ comments regarding the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Planned discussions this time include the conclusion of debates on the harmonisation of front-of-pack nutrition labelling, which is itself shaping up to be a major point of contention. 

The Commission’s proposal to study and ultimately institute a mandatory front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition labelling system across the EU by 2022 hangs like a sword of Damocles over the European agriculture, food, and retail sectors. Since releasing its box-fresh Farm to Fork strategy earlier this year, Brussels is now navigating pressure from a number of member states, including Germany, to adopt their preferred system – Nutri-Score – for food products from Belgium to Bulgaria. Unsurprisingly, given the rich diversity of food and farming cultures across the 27 member states, the campaign in favour of Nutri-Score is causing concern and drawing criticism from all corners.

A problematic favourite

Nutri-Score is a French-born idea, inspired in part by the traffic light system developed in the UK, that uses an algorithm to capture vital nutritional information on sugar, fat, salt, fibre and proteins with grades corresponding to one of five colours and letters. This system, which claims to simplify nutritional data for consumers, is in various stages of adoption by its native France as well as Spain, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

A number of other EU countries, however, including a coalition bringing together Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Cyprus, Latvia, Romania, and Greece, have rallied against Nutri-Score. Other EU members, including Sweden, have their own systems – such as the Nordic ‘Keyhole’ model used by Swedish consumers as well as Danes and Lithuanians – which they prefer to maintain. There is also Italy’s NutrInform, which uses a set of ‘batteries’ to communicate nutritional data without ascribing value judgements to influence consumer thinking. Even in Spain, which is officially in favour of Nutri-Score, agricultural minister Carmen Crespo has recently made comments critical of Nutri-Score for failing to capture the health benefits of olive oil, a major export product for Spain’s agricultural sector.

Of course, one of the ministers at the AGRIFISH Council most famously opposed to Nutri-Score will be its president, Germany’s Julia Klöckner herself. Klöckner vocally opposed Nutri-Score as recently as last year and sought to have Germany develop its own FOP label instead of adopting the French system. Echoing sentiments many of her counterparts at the AGRIFISH meeting will agree with, she said at the time that it was wrong to “pick out individual raw foods” and that Germany instead needed “a strategy that aims for the overall reduction of calories.”

The FOP label debate, however, goes well beyond any one candidate currently under consideration. Two principal arguments underpin the strength and depth of the resistance to any Europe-wide FOP label: the question of subsidiary, and the issue of national ownership of what is ultimately to become a European system.

The matter of subsidiarity

In spite of the Commission’s ambition to adopt a single EU-wide FOP label, as outlined in the Farm to Fork strategy, the debate over whether EU harmonization of something so profoundly local and regional as food culture is necessary, or feasible, speaks to the ongoing question of subsidiarity on this issue. As per the 1993 Treaty of Maastricht: “in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level.”

Recent statements from a number of AGRIFISH participants showcase rising doubts over the course of this debate, with anger over the push for Nutri-Score jeopardising the EU’s ability to legislate on this issue at all. The Italian minister of agriculture, Teresa Bellanova, stated last week it would “not continue the European negotiations for a text of conclusions of the AGRIFISH Council on food labelling.” In the Czech Republic, the ministry of agriculture, led by Miroslav Toman, similarly worries “this labelling system might discriminate against quality food… and it does not take into account the daily con­sump­tion.” Comparable statements from Romania’s Adrian Oros and Greece’s Makis Voridis highlight the extent to which the German campaign within the Council seems to have backfired.

Nutri-Score: made in France

The second source of opposition stems from the fact that adopting a system developed and managed by one country – such as France for Nutri-Score – hands responsibility and control over the system to health authorities in that country. This has already created problems for Nutri-Score over products such as olive oil, and the International Olive Council is still working with French authorities to have extra virgin olive oil reclassified as a healthy “A” food by the Nutri-Score system.

French influence over Nutri-Score extends to the food retail industry. According to the government, more than 400 French companies with 25% of market share have taken up the scheme, and several of the largest have taken it upon themselves to actively promote the still-voluntary label in France and other European markets. Critics argue this acceptance stems from the fact these companies can use the score, whose algorithm does not penalise processed foods, as a marketing tool.

Ultimately, while the European Union is a melting pot of cultures, there is no hegemonic fil rouge harmonising its cultural traditions. When it comes to food in particular, countries will clearly fight tooth and nail to safeguard their delicacies from perceived threat; Julia Klöckner and the German government have now learned the hard way that there is little appetite in Europe for a top-down approach on the labelling issue.