Sixth summary of progress on the consolidation and simplification of food hygiene legislation

Monday 11 August 2003

This note reports developments on the proposed legislation to consolidate and simplify EU food hygiene legislation, which have occurred since our fifth summary report of 10 January 2003.

It:

• Reports what happened in Council Working Groups under the Greek Presidency (1 January to 30 June 2003);
• Gives the latest versions of the text of the proposals;
• Reports on what has happened so far under the Italian Presidency and what we know of its plans for progressing discussions further;
• Reports on the European Parliament’s first reading of the revised third and fifth proposals;
• Reports on consideration of the timing of implementation for the legislation;
• Provides the latest versions of the Regulatory Impact Assessment on the package of proposals and the separate one on the re-issued third proposal.

Note: At present, it is unfortunate, but necessary, to refer to a large number of documents to convey the whole picture. When the Council Secretariat issues consolidated texts of the 4 proposals, which it plans to do during September, this website will be further updated.

Negotiations: Greek Presidency

Under the Greek Presidency, the Council Working Group concentrated on the revised third proposal (dealing with official controls on products of animal origin). The bulk of the proposal deals with controls on fresh meat, poultry meat and game meat, and details the role of the Official Veterinarian. In addition, the proposal sets out the rules for official controls on the production of live bivalve molluscs, fishery products and milk and dairy products. It includes rules for approval of establishments when required under national or Community law and the controls applying to the import of products of animal origin.

The text of the fifth proposal (dealing with the repeal and amendment of existing legislation) was also discussed later in the Presidency as well as the package as whole to ensure alignment of the whole package.

Jurist/Linguists group considered the second proposal on 28 May 2003. A revised text of the proposal was produced by the Council Secretariat for the purpose as document 5420/03.

Negotiations: Italian Presidency

The Italian Presidency have made early progress on the third and fifth proposals and presented texts to the Agriculture and Fisheries Council. On 22 July, Council unanimously reached political agreement on the proposals on the basis of documents 11502/03 ADD 1 and 11502/03 ADD 2. The texts will need to be considered by Jurist/Linguists group to ensure internal legal and linguistic consistency. The Presidency now intends to proceed to a common position at first reading on the package of proposals and this is scheduled for Council in October.

Further work has also been ongoing to ensure consistency between the proposals, and this has meant that the Council Secretariat has produced a corrigendum to the first proposal as document 10543/02 COR 2 which is attached for information. (An earlier corrigendum 10543/02 COR 1 was produced but only applied to mistakes in the Dutch text). In addition, the text of the first proposal has been amended by document 11104/03 ADD 1. The second proposal has been amended for the same reasons by document 11104/03 ADD 2.

European Parliament

The European Parliament (EP) held its first reading of the third and fifth proposals on 2-5 June. Mr. Schnellhardt (rapporteur) presented two reports to plenary session on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. The EP voted to adopt a total of 135 amendments to the Commission’s third proposal and 1 to the fifth. Of these, the Commission rejected 63 of the amendments to the third proposal and accepted the remainder, in whole or in part. Two information notes 9906/03 and 9899/03 report on these deliberations and can be found below.

The EP will return to consider the package of proposals again, at second reading, after the Council has adopted common position.

Adoption and Implementation

Negotiations leading to Agriculture and Fisheries Council in July also considered the arrangements for adoption of the proposals and the implementation of the package. The progress of the negotiations and the deliberations in the EP and Council make it likely that the package will be adopted during the course of the first half of 2004, although this is far from certain. With this in mind, the UK led calls for the provision of adequate and realistic time to be allowed between coming into force and the requirement for the legislation to be implemented. The UK called for a minimum period of two years, but some others favoured a shorter, one-year, timeframe.

The European Parliament also favours the shorter implementation deadline. In the event, the Council agreed a compromise formula for implementation of 18 months after coming into force or 1 January 2006, whichever is the later. However, this is the position at first reading and the European Parliament could return to this subject at second reading. There was no support from the Presidency, other member states or the Commission for a call from the United Kingdom to consider whether there is a case for the implementation timetable to be staggered for different business sectors eg on the basis of risk.

Regulatory Impact Assessments

The consultation documents that were issued both on the package of proposals and on the re-issued third proposal were accompanied by Initial Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIAs) on the likely effects for business and other interests of the implementation of the proposals. The RIAs have both been further revised and developed in the light of the ongoing negotiations and copies of the latest versions are attached to this update for information. Both will be further refined as the process continues.

Comments and feedback

We welcome any comments or feedback on this update or on the latest versions of the proposals. Please feel free to contact:

Catherine Bowles
Telephone: 020 7276 8952
catherine.bowles@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk

Gary Taylor
Telephone: 020 7276 8939
gary.taylor@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk