A new crackdown on the possibility of highlighting the health virtues of certain foods, so-called health claims, is threatened at the European Court of Justice. As an epilogue to the disproportionate restrictions already imposed by the European Commission over the years, the Advocate General of the EU Court compounded the dose. Asserting that information on the nutritional and health virtues of foods must meet the strict regime of reg. EC 1924/06, so-called claim regulation, even when they are exclusively intended for professional operators, such as herbal and parapharmacies, doctors, nutritionists, beauty or sports centers, for example.
The rules on health claims
The matter has already created much controversy and is likely to generate a new wave of it. In fact, European legislation (reg. EC 353/08) already requires that an application for the authorization of the use of a health claim on a food be accompanied by scientific demonstrations that are more rigorous than those provided for drugs. “Diabolical evidence whose extreme onerousness has caused the collapse of research in Europe on probiotics and functional foods, both in SMEs and in large industrial groups, thus causing the end of funding for public and private research on so-called functional foods and, more generally, on the relationship between the consumption of certain foods-even traditional ones-and health,” says the lawyer Dario Dongo, food law expert as well as founder of
GIFT – Great Italian Food Trade
and of
FARE – Food and Agriculture Requirements.
, who publishes today a vitriolic commentary on the findings of the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the EU in Case C-19/15.
A dangerous precedent
As we await the decision of the judges in Luxembourg, his background generates bafflement. As the Advocate General is trying to quite arbitrarily force the text of the Nutrition & HealthClaims (NHC) regulation to overstretch its scope. Right before the European Court of Justice, the body charged with overseeing compliance with the common law. A case that threatens to set a dangerous precedent. And that marks “A fall in the Court’s style,” Dario Dongo chimes in.
The fuse that created the case
The case originated as part of a nationwide lawsuit that arose in Germany, where a German manufacturer of dietary supplements, Innova Vital GmbH, had highlighted in a letter to doctors the usefulness of one of its vitamin D3 products in reducing the risks of various diseases.
A usual action, but this time opposed by the trade associationVerband Sozialer Wettbewerb, which sued the company for unfair competition, claiming violation of the relevant European regulation.
From Bavaria to Luxembourg, the outcome of the ruling could force European industry players to immediately revise their communication designs, materials and practices.
For a more in-depth discussion, here is the full text of Dario Dongo’s article.
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