At today's hearing in the Consumer Committee on the EU's Advertising and Fortification Ordinance, the nutrition expert of the FDP parliamentary group, Dr. Christel Happach-Kassan that a new regulation is necessary, but certainly not as anti-business as envisaged in the draft.

Harmonization of nutritional and health claims on foods and fortification of vitamins and minerals in foods is required. Different regulations in the member states impede the free movement of goods and therefore require more uniform rules in the European Union. However, the EU Commission has gone well beyond this goal with both regulations.

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The representative of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group for consumer protection, Ursula Heinen MdB, and the responsible rapporteurs, Julia Klöckner MdB and Uda Heller MdB, explain the hearing in the consumer protection committee on the EU Commission's proposals for regulations on advertising and vitamin supplements in foods:

The statements of the experts have shown: The goals aimed at by the EU Commission - standardization and greater scientific foundation of food advertising as well as better eating habits, especially among young people - are definitely and without a doubt worth supporting. However, the proposed regulation goes well beyond this objective.

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Gabriele Hiller-Ohm, the responsible rapporteur for the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, explains the hearing on the European Commission's proposal for a regulation on nutritional and health claims on food in the Committee on Consumer Protection, Nutrition and Agriculture:

The proposal for a regulation by the EU Commission, which is based on a request from the European Parliament, envisages standardizing nutritional and health claims for food at European level. This is intended to ensure Europe-wide reliability of the information, better consumer information and fair competition.

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From now on, the EU Commission will publish a report on danger reports every week

In the future, the European Commission would like to publish a weekly summary of the warnings it receives from the Member States about dangerous non-food consumer products. The first edition is already available on the Commission's consumer protection website [here].

On average, the Commission receives 2 to 4 product alerts a week via the EU-wide rapid information system for dangerous products (known by the acronym RAPEX). In many cases, the following dangers are involved: suffocation, obstruction of the respiratory tract, electric shock or ignition. The affected products are mostly toys. The second most dangerous product is electrical equipment. With the recast of the General Product Safety Directive, in force since 15 January, obliging manufacturers and distributors to notify the authorities of dangerous products on their own initiative (see IP/04/53), the RAPEX rapid alert system has now become even more important . There is a separate rapid alert system (RASFF) for food and feed at EU level. The threats reported using this system are also published in a weekly overview (see IP/03/750).

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Scarce supply of young bulls

The slaughterhouses in Germany only had a small number of young bulls available in the last few weeks of January. The slaughter companies therefore constantly corrected the payout prices upwards in order to obtain the required number of pieces. In contrast, cows for slaughter were surprisingly plentiful in the first half of January, which resulted in a sharp drop in prices in some cases. Due to the low price level, however, farmers were less willing to sell as the month progressed, and towards the end of the month the slaughterhouses paid at least the prices they had just maintained.

In January, producers received an average of EUR 3 per kilogram slaughter weight for young bulls in the meat trading class R2,39; that was 18 cents more than in December, but still 31 cents less than a year ago. For heifers in the R3 class, the average price rose by four cents to EUR 2,26 per kilogram, which is three cents short of the previous year's level. Revenues from category O3 cows for slaughter have also increased; from December to January they rose by seven cents to EUR 1,52 per kilogram, despite the clear downward trend at times; so the farmers got 17 cents less than in January 2003.

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Ships with supplies from overseas already underway

The onion harvest in the European Union in 2003 was not nearly as large as in the previous year: After weak yields due to the hot summer, the 15 member states only produced an estimated 3,6 million tons after a record 4,1 million tons in 2002. The prices are therefore at a higher level, also on the German market. Local consumers also have to pay more for the vegetables. At the shop level, a kilogram of household onions cost an average of EUR 0,78 in January, ten cents or almost 15 percent more than in the same month last year.

The supply situation in the EU should therefore attract more goods from the countries in the southern hemisphere, which regularly help to bridge the bulb gap between the old and the new European crop in early spring. The first goods from South Africa will be available shortly, the onion ships from New Zealand and South America are on their way. They will arrive in early March. Overall, the export volumes from overseas countries to the EU are likely to increase to around 230.000 tons and thus be around ten percent higher than in the previous year.

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Processors make up the main group of companies

More and more organic products in Germany bear the official organic seal. By the end of 2003, 1.006 companies had labeled 19.729 products with the organic seal, according to the Öko-Prüfzeichen GmbH. A year earlier there were only 712 companies with 14.007 products, which corresponds to an increase of more than 40 percent within one year.

The group of processors continues to make up the majority of the companies involved, accounting for around a third. Bread and baked goods still account for most of the Bio-Siegel products, namely around twelve percent. The sausage and meat products group follows with a share of eleven percent. Most of the companies come from Bavaria with almost a fifth, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg with 15 percent each and Lower Saxony with 13 percent.

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Many Germans still prefer to get fresh eggs directly from the producer or at the weekly market. Over a fifth of the eggs bought by German households come from these producer-related sales channels. However, the trend towards the discounter cannot be overlooked: in 2003, on a national average, 43 percent of all eggs were bought at Aldi, Lidl, Penny and Co. This information is based on the household panel of the Society for Consumer Research. The recording of the purchases of 12.000 German households was switched to hand-held scanners from the beginning of 2003 and is therefore not comparable with earlier information. However, it is certain that the discounters have noticeably expanded their market share in recent years, including for eggs. Regardless of the place of purchase, eggs are still as cheap today as they were 30, 40 or 50 years ago!

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Further increase in retail prices is not to be feared

The increase in consumer prices for lamb, which had risen steadily in previous years, is unlikely to continue on the German market this year. However, no significant price reductions are to be expected on an annual average either, because even in the fourth year after the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, sheepmeat production in the EU will remain lower than in 2000. The volume in 2004 is currently estimated at 1,04 million tons , at that time there were still 1,14 million tons available across the EU.

In 2001, foot-and-mouth disease reduced production in the European Union by a tenth compared to 2000. Great Britain, the most important producer country in the EU, was hit particularly hard. Since Germany's degree of self-sufficiency in sheep and goat meat is only around 50 percent and imports play an important role in covering demand, the general shortage in supply has had an impact on the German market and price developments. At the same time, our sheep stocks have been declining over the past two years.

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Ban on imports due to bird flu has not yet had any effect

So far, no effects of the chicken flu in Southeast Asia have been identified on the German poultry market. The currently available supply is good enough for the usual quiet demand. However, it remains to be seen whether the reporting will lead to consumer uncertainty. At least in the short term, the import ban on Thailand is unlikely to result in a shortage of supplies. Because the processing companies that purchase a large amount of goods from Thailand seem to be well stocked. In addition, other providers on the world market, especially Brazil, are already signaling an increased willingness to deliver. EU extends import ban from Asia

Because of the ongoing bird flu in Asia, the European Union has extended the import ban on poultry products from Asia by six months. The import ban affects imports of fresh chicken and chicken products from Thailand as well as domestic birds from Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Pakistan, China, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. The embargo applies up to and including August 15, 2004. However, the EU reserves the right to thoroughly examine the situation in Asia in order to amend the measures if necessary.

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The production value of the Dutch cattle, meat and egg sectors fell in 2003 compared to the previous year by eleven percent to 3,6 billion euros. According to the responsible product department, gross in-house production fell by eight percent to 2,6 million tons in the same period. The decrease was mainly due to the avian influenza that broke out in the spring of 2003, which temporarily paralyzed the production of poultry meat. The gross domestic production of eggs fell by 27 percent to seven billion pieces due to the disease outbreak.

In addition, the number of jobs in the cattle, meat and egg sectors in the Netherlands fell by six percent compared with 2002 to around 80.100. There were 39.000 jobs in primary production, five percent fewer than in the previous year. The reasons for the downsizing were avian influenza and the generally poor financial situation.

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