The European Court of Justice yesterday authorised Denmark to impose tougher food additive limits, effectively overuling a previous decision declared by the European Commission.
For the first time, Europe's highest court was called upon to rule in an action by Denmark that contested a refusal by the Commission to authorise it to maintain national measures on food additives.
The affair goes back to 1995 with the advent of a directive relating to food additives other than colours and sweeteners. Denmark had voted against the directive at the time of its adoption, on the ground that it did not meet health requirements as regards, in particular, nitrites, nitrates and sulphites.
Sulphites are preservatives used, inter alia, in wine, jam, pastries and dried fruit. Ingested in large amounts, they can cause lesions in the digestive tract and provoke severe allergic reactions in asthmatics.
Nitrites and nitrates also have a preservative effect and are used, inter alia, in meats. They inhibit the growth of bacterial pathogens such as Clostridium botulinum, which is responsible for botulism, but they have also be linked to cancer.
Denmark requested authorisation to maintain its provisions concerning those additives. In 1999, the Commission decided not to authorise the national legislation, which were considered disproportionate in relation to the objective of protecting public health. Denmark then requested the Court of Justice to annul that decision.
Yesterday Denmark's perserverance paid off with the top court asserting that the Commission decision 'did not take sufficient account of the 1995 opinion by the Scientific Committee on Food, which called into question the maximum amounts of nitrites set under the 1995 directive.'
But with regards to sulphites the Court supported the Commission with the words, 'the Court takes the view that they {Community harmonisation measures} appear to be sufficient in the light of the 1994 opinion by the SCF and that the Commission's decision not to authorise the stricter Danish system does not contain any error of fact or assessment in that regard.'