The European Parliament today adopted a report on the European Commission's Regulation on “Food intended for infants and young children and food intended for special medical purposes”, drafted by ALDE MEP Fréderique Ries (MR, Belgium), which defines concrete steps towards improving safety and quality of infant formulae and baby food products in the European Union.

The ALDE Group is disappointed by the failure of negotiations in the first reading with Council and remains determined to obtain a more complete regulation in a second reading under the Cypriot presidency.

The report widens the scope of the regulation to a limited number of food categories for particular nutritional cases: infants under three years of age and people for whom a special diet is vital on medical grounds, who clearly require special attention and common standards across the EU. Rules on the labelling and composition of ingredients for babies and food for people with special medical needs must be maintained as they are.  This means in particular the threshold levels of contaminants such as pesticides so as to take into account the physiological sensitivity of young children.

ALDE MEP Fréderique Ries, European Parliament´s rapporteur, said:
"I welcome the outcome of the plenary vote today asking for other types of foodstuffs to be covered by a ‘tailor-made’ legal framework such as slimming food replacing a person's daily food intake or strict diets under 1.000 calories per day for obese people. It is also important to keep specific provisions in the scope for patients struck down by the celiac disease: intolerance to gluten - the only kind of intolerance to food that could be lethal. Our goal is clear: we have to protect the most vulnerable in our society, they are not consumers like others and are entitled to specially adapted food".

MEPs are asking the European Commission for the following during the establishment of this new legislation on particular foods:
• streamlining general compositional rules applicable throughout the European Union,
• establishing and updating the list of permitted substances in food,
• strengthening provisions on foods for vulnerable population groups that need particular protection
• applying the precautionary principle to be used as an overarching safeguard when dealing with products targeting vulnerable groups,
• ensuring that all ingredients for foods for infants and young children are independently checked,
• risk management and market surveillance (improving the monitoring procedure),
• providing accurate and clear information to consumers through product labelling,
• clarifying with EFSA and Commission the legal status and added nutritional value of infant milk growth formulas.