Human consumption: new sweeteners additives, sucralose and salt of aspartame (amend. Directive 94/35/EC)

The committee adopted the report by Anne FERREIRA (PES, F) amending the Council's common position (under the 2nd reading of the codecision procedure) as follows: - the Commission should report to Parliament and the Council on progress made in the re-evaluations of all additives, in particular salt of aspartame-acesulfame and sucralose, within two years of the directive's entry into force. Although the Commission had appended a declaration to the common position pledging to examine the two new sweeteners within 4 years of the directive's entry into force, the committee felt that this should be written into the legislation; - MEPs refused to allow the Commission the right, at the present stage, to decide whether a substance is a sweetener or not. They argued that this extension of the Commission's powers should only be granted at a later stage, when the entire framework legislation had been amended (the Commission was planning to bring forward draft legislation on this in the next few months); - to prevent transitional exemptions being abused, the committee said that products which do not meet the requirements of this legislation should not remain on the market more than 24 months after the legislation enters into force, whereas the Council was prepared to allow sales to continue until stocks run out. MEPs pointed out that this could lead to an artificial build-up of stocks as a means of getting round this cut-off point.�