A useless quibble by the EU sends millions of wine labels to waste
A useless quibble by the EU, made known late, among other things, risks sending to waste a few million wine labels already printed and placed on the market on the bottles themselves, in an example of what doesn't work, and cannot work, in EU
In fact, the wines are missing the word "ingredients" under the QR code which refers to the so-called e-label, the electronic label containing the list of ingredients used in the production of wine and its nutritional values, as reported by the economic newspaper ItaliaOggi.
Following the provisions of EU regulation 2021/2117, published on 6 December 2021, European wine companies had to update their labels to respond to the new mandatory provisions on the list of ingredients and the nutritional declaration of wines and aromatized wine products. Yet another bureaucratic burden that adds nothing to the provisions of the previous regulations, apart from new costs for companies.
This information, according to EU regulations, can also be made available to the consumer online (e-label), via an adhesive QR code on the bottle labels.
Well, yesterday, two weeks after the entry into force of these obligations, imposed starting from 8 December 2023, the European Commission published the relevant guidelines in the Official Journal of the EU (series C of 24/11/2023). to the implementation of the provisions on wine labeling provided for by the 2017 regulation (communication no. C/2023/1190) .
At point no. 38 of the guidelines states that: «The mandatory information on foods» must be «placed in a conspicuous place», so «as to be easily visible, clearly legible and possibly indelible». But, "if there is no clear reference to the content of the information provided electronically on the label", Brussels writes: "It could be considered that this is hidden mandatory information". Consequently: «The presentation of a QR code should be clear to consumers as to its content, i.e. the mandatory information presented electronically».
From all this, the EU executive concludes that: «Generic terms or symbols (such as the "i" for information) are not sufficient to satisfy these obligations». Therefore, for the QR code: «It is necessary to use a header» like that already used for paper labels of other foods, «containing the word “ingredients”».
So the QR code with the ingredients is not enough and you have to write "Ingredients". All those who have already labeled the wine using only the QR code now find themselves outlawed, only because the Commission waited until the last minute, when the wine labels are now ready, to make the relevant communication. So wasn't it better to write the ingredients directly and not the QR code? If you want digitalisation you have to take the good and the bad, but let's leave it at that: we are talking about the EU, not about a normal organisation.
According to the Italian Wine Union (Uiv) and the European Committee of Wine Companies (Comité Vins – CEEV) the guidelines: «Annul what was previously agreed». The two organizations are thus asking for its urgent modification because: "They put a European economy worth 147 billion dollars a year out of play."
Who knows, perhaps this is not exactly the mission of the EU bureaucrats
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The article An unnecessary EU quibble sends millions of wine labels to waste comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/un-inutile-cavillo-della-ue-manda-al-macero-milioni-di-etichette-di-vino/ on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 17:49:32 +0000.