Foodlaw-Reading Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Food Law News - EU - 2017

Commission Daily News, 8 June 2017

RESIDUES / LABELLING - Better Regulation: Commission listens to citizens' and experts' ideas for improving EU laws

The REFIT Platform, launched as part of the Juncker Commission's Better Regulation Agenda and composed of external stakeholders and Member State experts, met on Wednesday 7 June and adopted 13 Opinions with concrete suggestions to the Commission on how to make existing EU laws more effective and efficient.

The Opinions adopted by the Platform yesterday include measures to:

• increase consumers' health and food safety by establishing suitable limits for chlorate in food;
• improve consumer satisfaction by providing a clear definition of the terms "vegan" and "vegetarian" in food labelling;
• examine the feasibility of harmonising identity and residence documents; and
• close the gap to citizens by improving consultation mechanisms.

Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans, who chairs the REFIT Platform, told its members "Your work in the REFIT Platform is a great way of turning citizens' and businesses' feedback on our laws into concrete solutions. I am deeply committed to this work, and at the end of this Commission's five-year mandate I want people to see that we have changed the way we work and improved our laws by listening and acting on their suggestions."

Phil Hogan, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development also attended yesterday's meeting to report on the follow up to the REFIT Platform's Opinion on reforming the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), stating, "The REFIT Platform Opinion underlined the broad societal support for the Common Agricultural Policy, with useful indications on how to how to make our policy tools more effective and efficient. This input will be used by the Commission to help draft its Communication on the future of the CAP, due by the end of 2017."

The Opinions adopted yesterday - bringing the total number of REFIT Platform recommendations to the Commission to 45 - will feed into the preparations for the 2018 Commission Work Programme, which is scheduled for adoption in October of this year.

All Opinions and information on the ongoing follow-up work by the Commission can be found on the REFIT Platform website. See: REFIT Platform

There appears to be no specific document linked to this announcement at present. However, for a document giving an indication of work in progress (including chlorate and vegan labelling), see: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/health_and_food_safety_1.pdf