The Commission has amended its proposal in light of the amendments voted at first reading.
The Commission has accepted the following amendments which aim to:
- add mixtures of mushrooms to the other mixtures (fruits or vegetables) whose labelling must not necessarily respect the rule of descending order of weight and specifies that this option applies only in the case of mixtures used in proportions which are likely to vary;
- to abolish the labelling derogation provided for in the proposal in respect of ingredients consisting of preparations of sauces or mustards constituting less than 5% of the finished product in foodstuffs.
The Commission accepts the following amendments in principle:
- make it incumbent on the European Food Safety Authority to establish criteria for updating the Annex and to review it at regular two-yearly intervals;
- require the Commission to issue detailed guidelines for the interpretation of the annex to the proposal.
On the other hand, the Commission rejects the following amendments:
- as regards ingredients used in small quantities (less than 5% of the finished product), this amendment eliminates the possibility of not strictly respecting the descending order of weight when enumerating them in the list of ingredients;
- eliminates the possibility of not repeating an ingredient used several times in the preparation of a foodstuff, both as a simple ingredient and as an ingredient of a compound ingredient;
- eliminates the possibility of not indicating the composition of compound ingredients used in small quantities (less than 5% of the finished product) when the composition of the compound ingredient is defined in current Community legislation, which indicates the composition in line with the sales name. The products potentially concerned by this derogation are chocolates, fruit juices, fruit jams, jellies, marmalades and chestnut purΘe;
- exempts processing aids derived from allergenic ingredients from the labelling requirement on the grounds that these substances are eliminated during the manufacturing process;
- add the named ingredients to the list in the Annex. The Commission, with a view to updating the list in the future, has invited the Scientific Committee on Food to prepare a rapid procedure for amending the list (comitology). It will also raise the question as to the necessity of adding these ingredients to the list.�