Bellanova: "difficult to continue negotiations on nutritional labeling"
Italy is not satisfied with the progress of European negotiations on the conclusions of the Agrifish Council on nutritional labeling.
This was stated by Minister Teresa Bellanova this morning during the bilateral meeting with her Portuguese counterpart Maria do Céu Antunes, anticipating how problematic it seems to carry on the process.
“We have already had the opportunity to discuss the issue in Koblenz and you know the terms of the Italian position well, but also our determination in this regard. The negotiations of the last few weeks on the draft Council conclusions presented by the Presidency have confirmed the difficulty of reaching an agreement in the Council: in our opinion the approach was not completely neutral "said Minister Bellanova, stigmatizing in particular how, through the combination of labeling and nutritional profiles, it was intended to refer to a non-shared logic of predetermining the nutritional value of the foods to be conveyed on the label.
Bellanova then recalled the imminent publication in the Official Gazette of the Decree that allows the food industry to adopt the NutrInform Battery scheme, launched to concretely translate the Italian vision of nutritional labeling: scientific cut, transparent information, informative but not prescriptive approach, exclusion of the PDO and PGI.
"I know that the Portuguese Presidency intends to devote a lot of attention to the issue of consumer law", concluded the Minister, "and for this very reason I invite you to also investigate the right to transparency in food information: consumers want to know where a product comes from what it contains. We must help them understand and act accordingly, without wanting to substitute trivial messages on the presumed healthiness of food for their judgment ”.