Food additives other than colours and sweeteners

The Economic and Social Committee approves the Proposal for a Directive amending the General Additives Directive (95/2/EC), which mainly involves applications of existing additives other than colours and sweeteners, as necessary and urgent subject to some comments. The current amendment procedure involving Council and Parliament is complicated and results in an extremely long time scale to adapt additives to new developments. In addition, there is a real need for having a procedure which involves the citizen adequately. The Committee therefore suggests the following compromise: - changes involving new additives should continue by a Council and Parliament procedure; - changes involving only changes in application should be made by a Committee procedure involving the Standing Committee for Foodstuffs, prior consultation of the various socio-economic partners represented on the Advisory Committee for Food. In general if there are no health limitations it is best to have the widest choice of alternatives on the list of additives, thus reducing the consumption of any particular one. The Committee has also a number of detailed comments on the Annexes, which concern sections 3 and 9 and also those referring to Sorbates, Sulphites, Phosphates and talc.�