Impact of the European Parliament elections for the food sector – a preliminary analysis
12 June 2009
** As a result of the European Parliament elections this month, a number of political discussions and negotiations are taking place on the final composition of the different political groups, the re-organisation of the parliamentary committees and their memberships; the key positions in the Parliament, such as President, Vice-Presidents, Chairs of the different committees and so forth.
The main committee focusing on food-related issues is the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI). Its membership is, once more, leading to tough political negotiations as it is a committee with substantial public and media exposure, with most of the dossiers it works on adopted through a ‘co-decision’ procedure, giving equal power to the Parliament and the Council. Additionally, the possibility of splitting the ENVI Committee into two more specialised committees is under consideration.
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In terms of the MEPs that were involved in the various food issues before the elections, it is interesting to note that Renate Sommer (rapporteur on the food labelling proposal), who has voiced opposition to the nutrient profiles system, has been re-elected. Kartika Liotard (rapporteur on the novel food proposal), who has strong opinions on nanotechnologies and cloning, has also been re-elected. Although nothing has been decided yet, it is likely that they will continue their work on these dossiers. If they do remain in charge of these dossiers, their negotiations may re-start sooner.
Other very active ‘food’ MEPs have also been re-elected, such as:
- Dagmar Roth Behrendt (PES), who also opposes the nutrient profiles system
- Horst Schnellhardt (EPP-ED), implicated in food safety dossiers in the past
- Miroslav Ouzky (previously EPP-ED), chairman of the last ENVI committee
- Frédérique Ries (ALDE), who has voiced strong opinions on nutrition and obesity issues
- Asa Westlund (PES), who worked on the report for the new food additives regulation
- and Linda McAvan (PES), who was heavily involved in the report on the nutrition and health claims regulation.
Others did not come back, including John Bowis (EPP-ED), Philip Bushill-Matthews (EPP-ED), Avril Doyle (EPP-ED), Jules Maaten (ALDE) and Dorette Corbey (PES).
It is still too soon to have a clear idea on the implications these elections could have on the future discussions on food issues and on the overall balance of powers in the Parliament. In general terms, one can assume that as no party has won enough seats to have an absolute majority (369 votes), on issues where the majority of the Party of European Socialists (PES) and the Greens oppose the majority of the European People’s Party (EPP-ED), it will most likely be the Alliance for Liberals and Democrats in Europe (ALDE) deciding which way the vote will go. However, many of the above discussions and considerations will be concluded in the coming weeks, and the final membership of the Committees should be officially confirmed at the Plenary inaugural meeting in July.
** Comment piece from EAS
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