AGRI-FOODS: INFRINGEMENT PROCEDURES AGAINST FRANCE, GERMANY AND GREECE FOR BARRIERS TO TRADE.

France: rubber products in contact with foodstuffsFrench rules on rubber products in contact with foodstuffs such as pressure cooker rings and seals on jars - (an Order of November 9, 1994) do not allow such products imported from other Member States to be authorised for sale unless the Member States concerned themselves apply detailed rules in this area. In other words, France refuses to apply the principle of mutual recognition, whereby it should authorise the sale of all products that are lawfully manufactured and/or marketed in other Member States unless restrictions are justified by a requirement to protect the public interest (e.g. on public health grounds) and are in proportion to that requirement. Apart from France, only a few Member States have specific rules on rubber products in contact with foodstuffs, so that in practice products from all other Member States would have to be manufactured in accordance with French rules before they could be authorised for sale in France. Before the 1994 Order was adopted, it had been notified to the Commission under the terms of Directive 83/189/EEC and the EU executive had already informed the French authorities that the Order should include a mutual recognition clause.The Commission has now decided to refer the case to the Court of Justice because the French authorities are still refusing to introduce a satisfactory mutual recognition clause. Instead, the French authorities insist not only that products should be subject to specific rules in the Member State of origin but also that other Member States' rules should specify the use of the same polymers and additives as the French Order.Germany: barriers to food supplement imports and sale.The Commission has decided to refer Germany to the Court on the question of barriers to the sale of vitamin-enriched food supplements imported from other Member States. Because of the levels of vitamins in these products, the German authorities classify some of them as medicinal products. The effect of this classification is that they are subject to a long and costly authorisation procedure. However, the Commission considers that the systematic application of a purely quantitative criterion (three times the recommended daily intake) to classify a vitamin supplement as a medicinal product disregards the differences between the various types of vitamins and the different levels of risk involved in the event of excessive consumption. A less restrictive measure...