Group of EU countries pushes to extend food origin labelling

A dozen EU countries backed Germany and Austria’s push to extend mandatory origin labelling to a wider range of food products at a Council meeting on Monday (27 May), despite concerns from some countries about disrupting the market and raising prices for consumers. 

Berlin and Vienna were backed by the delegations from eleven member states, with some nuances, at Monday’s meeting of EU agriculture ministers, where they called on the European Commission to come forward with a proposal to include more foodstuffs in mandatory origin indication. 

“Existing EU regulations are not yet sufficient for achieving [the] goals [of transparency and sustainability],” said the note presented by the two countries. It added that extending the bloc’s rules on mandatory origin labelling could help consumers choose products with shorter distance of transport and supply chains. 

The EU currently only requires origin labelling for certain foodstuffs, such as eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables, honey, olive oil, and certain types of meat. 

Some member states – including France, Finland, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, and Spain – have in the past approved their own labelling requirements for other products, citing the right of consumers to make informed decisions about their food choices. 

As part of the bloc’s flagship Farm to Fork food policy, in 2020 the EU executive pledged to consider extending mandatory origin labelling to more products, as part of a comprehensive overhaul of the EU’s regulation on the provision of food information to consumers (FIC). 

However, no such proposal has yet been tabled. 

“We’re continuing to gather evidence and data, particularly on the impacts of food labelling on food business operators, consumer prices, consumer behaviour, and the internal market,” Financial Services Commissioner Mairead McGuinness, deputising for her agriculture colleague Janusz Wojciechowski, told journalists at the Council on Monday. 

McGuinness described origin labelling as a “sensitive topic” on which there is no consensus and which will be up to the future EU executive to decide, after June’s EU elections.   

Still divided 

“The origin of food is increasingly important for many people in Europe,” said Austrian Agriculture Minister Norbert Totschnig, calling on the current or next EU executive to “swiftly” submit a proposal that supports local farming.  

His Spanish colleague Luis Planas also called for “a harmonised approach” to origin labelling across the bloc, adding that the EU’s move to improve the transparency on the origin of honey earlier this year showed the way forward. 

Others, however, sounded the alarm about the potential unintended consequences of such a change, including increased competition between farmers from different EU member states, a higher administrative burden on food producers, and a potential rise in food prices. 

Irish Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue expressed concerns about ensuring a smooth functioning of the single market and said that origin “is not always the key factor”.

Similarly, his Danish counterpart Jacob Jensen suggested focusing instead on labelling “in relation to climate, animal welfare, and nutrition”. 

Poland and Bulgaria acknowledged the importance of the topic but stressed the need of “an impact assessment” to weigh the pros and cons of the origin labelling.

National measures mosaic

In the past decade, at least eight EU countries have introduced national mandatory labelling schemes for certain food products, which are allowed under the FIC regulation if justified by specific reasons, such as consumer protection. 

Notably, France, Italy, and Greece applied in 2016 to make the origin of milk mandatory on the labels of milk and dairy products. Spain followed suit the year after. 

Others, such as Finland, Lithuania, Portugal and Romania, have also national food origin labelling schemes. 

While such measures were welcomed by the countries’ consumer and farmer organisations, they have not been without controversy. 

Following a ruling of the European Court of Justice, in March 2021 France’s top court annulled the national measure on milk labelling, saying that Paris had failed to prove a link between the origin of the product and its properties – as required by EU rules.

“In several rulings, the ECJ has consistently confirmed that mandatory origin labelling will lead to food nationalism and protectionist markets,” the European Dairy Association told Euractiv, endorsing a “voluntary origin labelling for milk dairy products”.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Zoran Radosavljevic]

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