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Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, FR), Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, supported the introduction of European legislation against deforestation last week. According to Canfin, it is no longer possible to talk about “if” European legislation will be introduced; the question is “what” legislation will be. The introduction of anti-deforestation legislation was also supported by Bernd Lange, Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade (S&D, DE). According to Lange, the new rules should apply in particular to the supply chains for cocoa, coffee, soybean and palm oil. Lange also supported the obligation of the necessary in-depth checks. Access to EU markets should be conditional on respect for the parameters of the new system. Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans also supported the introduction of similar legislation at EU level, could be part of the European Green Agreement, which the Commission is expected to present within 100 days of taking up the mandate, and its implementation will be supervised by Timmermans. Any new European legislation, however, will have to take into account the views of the World Trade Organization, which prohibits the creation of unfair trade benefits for European producers (forest areas are growing in the EU, deforestation occurs outside the EU). The new rules would thus have to apply to EU production as well as to production from third countries.

Failure to approve the first Romanian candidate Rovany Plumb as Commissioner for Transport resulted in the collapse of the government on 10/10/2019, thereby blocking the process of selecting a new candidate. But in the past week, the new Romanian government received confidence, which subsequently nominated Adina-Ioana Vălean (EPP) and Siegfried Muresan (EPP) as Commissioner. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, subsequently confirmed Adina-Ioana Vălean, who should become Commissioner for Transport as of December. Vălean is the current MEP, Chair of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and a substitute member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. Vălean, together with the Hungarian and French candidates, must now have a public hearing in the relevant committees of the European Parliament; however, the President of the European Commission asked for a nomination for both Commissioner and Great Britain due to further postponement of Brexit. The UK initially decided not to nominate candidates due to the plan to withdraw from the EU by 31/10/2019. Von der Leyen called on the UK Prime Minister to nominate a Commissioner -designate, preferably applying for a candidate to ensure gender equality in the Commission - if its current team were approved, the gender ratio would be 15 to 12 without the UK. The European Commission could take up the mandate from 01/12/2019.

In spring 2019, the European institutions agreed on the text of a new directive regulating, inter alia, the dual quality of food and products in the European Union. However, members of the European Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection stated that the text of the new directive was too weak during the interinstitutional negotiation process compared to the original proposed text of the Committee. The study by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission of June 2019, which found that a total of 9% of foods across the Member States of the European Union have the same label, but with different composition, has not clarified the ambiguities. However, the methodology used for the study was criticized for several reasons - for example, it considered only the markets of the 19 EU Member States, not all 28 (27). According to Polish MEP Róży Thun (EPP), the resulting text of the directive is very negative; Czech MEP Marcel Kolaja (Greens) proposes to add double quality to the list of directly prohibited unfair commercial practices. The Committee asks the European Commission to look further at the issue; the concept of 'significant differences' should be clarified; appropriate enforcement and control measures should be laid down; food comparison should take place in all, not some EU countries; and national requirements that may enable food manufacturers to change food ingredients should be mapped. However, the representative of the European Commission, Blanca Rodrígues, stated that the assessment of significant differences should be in the hands of the Member States, refusing to include double quality in the list of directly prohibited practices - according to the Commission.

The global BCG standard for packaging and packaging materials was significantly revised in August 2019 for the first time since 2015 to improve product safety and quality in relation to the production and printing of packaging materials. The Bureau Veritas International Certification Agency calls on manufacturers of packaging materials to take concrete measures to improve safety and quality according to the latest requirements published in the BRCGS Standards for Packaging Standards. The production of packaging for the food industry often involves potentially harmful substances or processes, such as inks or coatings of packaging, which can enter the food through foreign bodies. The revised standard is due to enter into force in February 2020.
More information is available here.

On 04/11/2019, the European Commission launched a public consultation on geographical indications and traditional specialties guaranteed. The aim of the evaluation is to assess the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and consistency of these quality systems for certain types of food and agricultural products. GI schemes give consumers the assurance that a given product has been produced in a particular country or region; the traditional specialty guaranteed program ensures that the product has been manufactured using traditional methods. Contributions to the consultation can be sent by 27/01/2020.
More information is available here.