EU claims law stumbles over rule change

A "technical glitch" could force policy makers to redraft one of the most controversial pieces of food regulation to come out of Brussels in recent years, legal experts have warned.

Almost four years after it was proposed, the final draft of the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation reached the legal services team at the European Commission (EC) last month for 'last minute tweaks'.

However, the text did not take into account a change, agreed in July, in the comitology or committee rules, which gives the European Parliament (EP) and Council a say and a veto for the first time on how sketched-out details of legislation are drawn up in full. The change gives the pair a veto on some of the most contentious clauses in the regulation, such as on nutrient profiling.

This has thrown the whole process into disarray, said Patrick Coppens, food law manager at the European Advisory Services, a food regulation consultancy.

"It is not clear how the EC will resolve this problem," said Coppens. He said that the issue could go into the rare process of conciliation between the Commission, the EP and the Council, which could open up a can of worms. "I'm not sure that there is really the appetite for this. The other option is just to publish the text as it is and amend it afterwards. But this would in turn be subject to co-decision procedure and open up the whole thing for debate again. It really is very unfortunate considering how long it's taken to get to where we are now."

The regulation had been expected to be rubber-stamped by November, he said. "However, if it does go to conciliation, there will be an opportunity to talk about things that manufacturers are not happy about in the current text."

One food law consultant was not clear why lawyers had been so slow to realise the problem: "This really is a massive cock-up whichever way you look at it."