Food Supplements Directive

EDM number 82 in 2005-06, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 17/05/2005.

That this House welcomes the recent scathing opinion of the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice who concluded in the case brought by the Health Food Manufacturers Association and the National Association of Health Stores, with the support of Consumers for Health Choice, that the Food Supplements Directive infringes the principle of proportionality, because basic principles of Community law, such as the requirements of legal protection of legal certainty and of sound administration have not been properly taken into account and that it is invalid; notes that the final ruling of the Court is due in July just as the United Kingdom takes the Presidency of the European Union, and that the legislation may need to be rewritten by the Commission; observes that this creates an opportunity to ensure the text of the revised legislation provides an exception to permit Member States to allow onto their national markets products which otherwise lie outside the Directive's restrictive terms; regrets that despite all the concern demonstrated over many years the policy of the Food Standards Agency remains to wait and see what the Commission intends to do; and calls for a pro-active strategy involving ministerial level contact with the Commissioner immediately to be implemented so the Commission is left in no doubt that the disproportionate, burdensome and unnecessary aspects of this legislation should not apply to the United Kingdom's national market.

This motion has been signed by a total of 70 MPs.