In a controversial move, MEPs have rejected compromise amendments that would have re-introduced a requirement for nutrient profiles (article 4) for any health and nutrition marketing claims for food products items. Voting yesterday in the Brussels plenary session confirmed the position taken by its Environment, Food Safety and Public Health Committee on 21 April 2005 to delete key parts of the Commission's draft 'Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on foods'.

The Commission's draft Regulation recognised that health and nutrition claims on food products are powerful marketing tools, which when used inappropriately can be misleading for the consumer. The Commission proposed that only food products that met minimum nutritional criteria known as nutrient profiles could be promoted using health and nutrition claims, which would then be subject to prior approval by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) who would evaluate the claims based on scientific evidence. This would have given a clear signal to the consumer that such food items would contribute towards a healthy diet and a well-defined standard for the food industry to reach in order to be able to promote a product on the grounds of health and nutrition.

Currently there are no controls at EU level on such claims and limited and fragmented regulation at national level. This has led to blatant abuse such as children's sweets being advertised as "low in fat" despite being almost entirely made of refined sugar or breakfast cereals being promoted as "rich in vitamins" when they contain only tiny amounts of vitamins and unhealthily high levels of sugar. Across the globe, the alarming trends of poor nutrition and obesity have led to tighter controls on how food is labelled and marketed. In response, the U.S, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have all established "nutrient profiles" as a pre-condition for food products to be marketed using health or nutritional claims.

In a retrograde step, MEPs removed the requirements for food product bearing claims to meet a nutrient profile and for a system prior authorisation of a health and nutrition claim by EFSA. Instead, MEPs opted for the weaker system of notification only. This puts the burden on EFSA and consumer organisations to challenge the use of inaccurate or inappropriate health and nutritional claims, and provides no guarantee for consumers that products purchased bearing health or nutritional claims are indeed as healthy or nutritious as they claim to be.

A coalition of consumer and health European NGOs composed by EURO COOP, EHN, EURO CARE, EPHA and PGEU, along with the World Health Organisation, the European Commission and several EU Member States advocate effective regulation of health and nutrition claims as part of a comprehensive strategy to improve the diet of Europeans and reduce diet-related illnesses.