I thank the Chairman for inviting the Department of Agriculture and Food to update the committee on COM (2006) 340, a proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and the Council correcting Directive 2002/2EC amending Council Directive 79/373 on the circulation of compound feeding stuffs.
Before dealing specifically with the proposal before us I will give a short overview of how animal feed controls operate here. All legislation governing controls in the use of animal feeding stuffs in Ireland is based on EU legislation which has been adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers and is binding on all member states.
The Department of Agriculture and Food is the competent authority here with responsibility for the transposition of this legislation into national law and for its full implementation. Departmental staff carrying out inspections of animal feeding stuffs are individually authorised by the Minister for this purpose. Each year a risk-based inspection programme is drawn up and some 3,000 feed samples are taken at points of import, at manufacturing mills and on farms, and are sent for analysis to designated laboratories, chiefly the State Laboratory and the Irish Equine Centre in Kill, County Kildare.
The samples are analysed for a broad range of analytes such as protein, fibre and ash content, as well as for the presence of prohibited animal proteins, undesirable substances, metals, micro-toxins, etc. Animal feed legislation also governs the use of certain additives, the circulation of feeding stuffs in the marketplace and the adequate labelling of feed products to ensure full traceability.
The proposal before us relates to labelling. The proposal is for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council, correcting Directive 2002/2 amending Council Directive 79/373 on the circulation of compound feeding stuffs. The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers are obliged to correct Directive 2002/2. This obligation follows a ruling last December by the European Court of Justice. Council Directive 79/373 lays down the rules for the circulation of compound feeding stuffs within the community.
The purpose of the directive is to ensure that labelling informs farmers objectively and as accurately as possible about the composition and use of feeding stuffs. Directive 2002/2 which was introduced into national legislation by SI 237 of 2003 introduced eight distinct amendments to Directive 79/373, most of which were at the behest of the European Parliament. These amendments were to become effective from November 2003.
Notwithstanding the fact that the amending directive was approved at European Parliament and Council of Ministers level, concerns were expressed within the feed industry of several member states, including Ireland regarding two of the amendments. These referred to obligations on the animal feed industry, first, to list the feed materials present in a compound feed in descending order of inclusion, with an indication of plus or minus 15% of the actual percentage of each feed material in the compound, and, second, to give details on request to the purchaser of the exact percentages by weight of the feed materials used in the manufacture of the compound feed.
The feed industry in these concerned member states secured a stay through their national courts on the implementation of the provisions of Directive 2002/2 pending a ruling on the two points by the European Court of Justice, ECJ. In December 2005 the ECJ ruled that the requirement to list ingredients of compound feed on a label within a tolerance of plus or minus 15% was proportionate and therefore valid, but the requirement to disclose the exact percentage ingredient information on request to customers violated intellectual property rights and was disproportionate and therefore invalid.
Consequently, it was incumbent on the Commission to come forward with a proposal to amend Directive 2002/2 to give effect to the ECJ ruling. The Commission proposal is simply to delete the invalid provision, Article 1(1)(b) from the original directive by means of a Council decision. It argues that since an overall review of the feed labelling legislation is planned for late 2007, such an approach is the most pragmatic.
This proposal has been discussed at both Council working group level and at the European Parliament. The Council working group has accepted the Commission proposal as being purely a corrective exercise, notwithstanding the fact that some feed industries are still dissatisfied with the plus or minus 15% requirement in that it will compel compounders to display information which they consider to be commercially sensitive.
The European Parliament, however, has not adopted a formal position on the proposal but one is anticipated before the end of the year. If there is a convergence of views new legislation is likely to be adopted early in the new year.
The Irish feed industry secured a stay in the High Court in March 2004 and prevented the Minister for Agriculture and Food from implementing the provisions of Directive 2002/2 pending the ECJ ruling. Consideration of the stay was listed for the High Court last month, but the Department instructed our counsel to adjourn the matter until the amending proposal has been passed into law, following which the Minister will introduce a statutory instrument to give effect to the new dispensation.
I hope I have sufficiently outlined the Department's role in animal feed controls and elaborated on the progress of the proposal. My colleagues and I are happy to answer any questions.