Italy “not alone” in EU against cultured meat and calls for impact analysis and public consultation

Brussels – No isolation and no forward move by Italy in Brussels on the laboratory-grown meat dossier, also called synthetic through the use of processed stem cells. Italy is not alone or reckless on the issue, and this was claimed by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, who today (Jan. 23) at the EU Agriculture Council held in Brussels presented a document together with the French, Marc Fesneau, and Austrian, Norbert Totschnig, ministers asking the European Commission to provide “solid scientific information on these foods,” and turn the spotlight on the fact that a blocking minority could be created in the EU Council should a marketing application arrive.

The document was supported by nine other delegations (Czech, Cypriot, Greek, Hungarian, Luxembourg, Lithuanian, Maltese, Romanian, and Slovakian), although for the time being Brussels has not received any requests for laboratory-grown food to be placed on the European market. “Evidently, Italy was not isolated in this position but, on the contrary, is at the forefront of protecting our agricultural supply chains, the health of citizens, consumers, and quality. So there is nothing we did wrong, we worked ahead,” Lollobrigida pointed out, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Council.

Laboratory-grown meat—as well as protein intake from insects—are examples of so-called novel foods as those foods that have not been consumed “to any great extent” , as defined by Brussels, from the European population before May 1997. The category includes novel foods, foods from new sources, new substances used in foods as well as new ways and technologies for food production. And they are all subject to strict safety evaluation by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa).

But on synthetic meat, the debate remains on a still hypothetical level, as the European Commission has not yet received any requests, and he reiterated it today at the daily press briefing. We have “not received so far any requests for trade authorization of laboratory-grown meat for the European market,” clarified the European Commission’s spokesman for health and food safety, Stefan de Keersmaecker, recalling the European Union’s work in “ensuring that our food, including novel foods like cultured meat, is safe, thanks to very strict food safety rules that include, among many things, a very thorough evaluation by Efsa.”

For Lollobrigida it remains “a potential danger to Europe from so many points of view. Maybe the health one, maybe the environmental one, maybe the ethical one.” So much so that Italy has been for months at the forefront in Brussels to discourage any kind of Brussels intervention to authorize synthetic meat for trade, and in November approved a bill to ban the production and sale of “synthetic food and feed”, even though for the time being there is  no in vitro or lab-grown product to be marketed in Europe.

“Italy is opposed to food productions that risk calling into question health, the environment, our production model and the right of access to quality food,” but not “research and data verification,” the minister clarified in the public session. The document sent to Brussels is less stark than the marketing ban promoted instead by the Meloni government and Lollobrigida’s words.

In essence, the signatory ministers demand in the document that “prior to any authorization” for trade, the “Commission initiate a proper public consultation on laboratory-grown meat” and a “comprehensive, fact-based impact assessment on artificial meat prior to any authorization for sale and consumption.” This impact assessment, the document continues, will have to address “ethical, economic, social, and environmental issues, as well as nutritional, health safety, food sovereignty and animal welfare issues.” As the Italian minister summarizes, the document calls for “answers and that, possibly, we resort to something very democratic: asking European citizens for their opinion through a public consultation as well.”