EU Commission sued for secrecy over ditched food label plan

The European Commission faces questions over dropped plans to introduce mandatory food labelling after two food NGOs - foodwatch international and Access Info - filed a case with the EU General Court claiming that the executive refused to disclose reasonable information on the scheme.

The initiative to introduce mandatory front-of-packet labelling was part of the broader Farm to Fork Strategy presented by the Commission in 2020 and aimed to harmonise the nutritional information provided to consumers, but has since been quietly dropped. 

“Why has the EU Commission silently buried its plan to present a Europe-wide nutrition label as planned in the Farm to Fork strategy? What influence does the food lobby have?” asked Suzy Sumner, head of foodwatch international's Brussels office. 

She said that half a billion European consumers have the right to know, at a glance, what's in their food. 

Both organisations have submitted multiple requests for access to documents to the European Commission, seeking clarity on the reasons behind the withdrawal of the proposal. They requested the internal Impact Assessment, the Opinion of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, and minutes of related meetings concerning the legislative process. 

The Commission refused to share the information, arguing that even partial disclosure “would seriously undermine its ongoing decision-making due to the external pressure it stated would occur”. 

The case was also reviewed by the European Ombudsman, who concluded that the Commission’s refusal constituted maladministration and that the reasoning for withholding the documents was inadequate.

“The requested documents are legislative in nature,” said Carlos Cordero, President of Access Info. “According to case-law of the General Court of the European Union, such documents are subject to the highest level of transparency and the principle of the widest possible access. This standard, however, has not been applied to the Nutri-score documents." 

Access Info escalated the case to the EU’s General Court after the Ombudsman’s judgment, aiming to overturn the Commission’s refusal and foodwatch International has now joined the case, which was filed with the court last week. 

This case is a new chapter of the long-standing feud over transparency in the European Commission.  

Earlier this year, the EU’s top court annulled the Commission’s decision to deny the New York Times access to messages exchanged between President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla about COVID-19 vaccine contracts in what became a pivotal case for institutional transparency.