Question 30217 — laws

Summary

Mr Jean-Baptiste Moreau questions the Minister of Agriculture and Food on the timetable for notification to the European Commission of the law relating to the transparency of information on agricultural and food products. The law provides for mandatory labeling of the origin of cocoa products. This measure raises a number of technical and legal questions. Indeed, the labeling of chocolate products falls under Directive 2000/36/EC. As specified in Article 4 of this directive, it is a text of maximum harmonization. Consequently, Member States do not have the possibility of adopting additional national provisions within the scope of the directive. This new labeling, if adopted as is, will only be imposed on French territory. It must therefore be the subject of notification to the European Commission and include a “mutual recognition clause”, stipulating that the labeling of origin of French cocoa can only apply to cocoa products manufactured on French soil. This would represent a significant distortion of competition for French companies and artisan chocolatiers facing their European competitors in a context of health crisis which has hit them hard with colossal losses of income during the Easter holidays when everyone was confined. French chocolatiers and small and medium-sized businesses that process chocolate in the territories do their job in a very competitive environment. They need to be fixed on the date of entry into force of this measure which involves heavy changes to be made and additional constraints (calling into question the confidentiality of French operators’ revenues; logistical issues in terms of packaging and labeling, etc.). In this context, he asked him if he could give him any information regarding the timetable for notification of the law (and article 1e/cocoa origin labeling) to the European Commission.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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