Compound feedingstuffs: marketing, tracing, labelling (amend. Directive 79/373/EEC)

This Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament concerns the Common Position of the Council on the adoption of a Directive amending Directive 79/373/EEC on the marketing of compound feedingstuffs. The main amendments to Directive 79/373/EEC seek to: - list all the ingredients used in manufacturing compound feedingstuffs, indicating for each of them the quantity present in the feedingstuff; - remove the possibility of declaring materials by category of ingredients; - report the batch production number. Against this background, the Commission is of the opinion that the most discussed issue for achieving a common position has been the opposition of most of the Member States in the declaration of the exact quantity of the ingredients present in the compound feedingstuff. The Council and the Commission agreed to mention each of the ingredients, with their exact denomination, within 5 percentage bands. The Commission can agree on the Council's common position because it is respected that all ingredients must be mentioned in the label with their exact names and because it is also guaranteed that the stock farmer can obtain all the necessary information about the composition of the feedingstuffs. The Commission feels that this combined solution is almost equivalent to its initial proposal and finally, there are no unilateral declarations of the Commission.�