Cultured meat, Brussels belies Italy: “No comments on substance from EU.” Procedural flaws block process

Brussels – No judgment on the merits or substance of the bill by which Italy wants to ban the marketing of cultured or synthetic meat. Brussels belies Rome and explains that it has dismissed the Italian bill to ban the sale or production of synthetic food and feed due to procedural flaws, not substance. At this stage, Brussels “has no substantive comments,” the EU executive’s spokeswoman for the internal market, Johanna Bernsel, clarified today during the daily press briefing, explaining that the closure of the TRIS (Technical Regulation Information) notification system process “was done on a procedural basis because the law was passed in violation of the suspensive terms of the TRIS regulation.”

The spokeswoman responded to a question about statements made yesterday (Feb. 1) by the Minister for Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida. The closure of the procedure “implies that the compatibility of the law with the principles of EU internal market law has been definitively established by the European Commission. Otherwise, the Commission would have proceeded with a circumstantial opinion, regardless of the manner of notification,” said in a note Lollobrigida, assuring that “there will therefore be no infringement procedure, nor a request to Italy to repeal the law.” This is not the case and it is not true that Italy cannot incur an infringement procedure. The clarification by the minister came yesterday after the publication by the online newspaper Il Foglio of the letter in which the European Commission informed Italy that the procedure had been closed because “the text was adopted by the member state before the end of the suspension period.”

The Meloni government was among the first to lash out against lab-grown meat to “protect human health and agri-food heritage by banning the production and marketing of synthetic foods,” reads the law, which provides monetary penalties for those who do not comply. Although up until now, lab-grown meat, called “synthetic meat” in the public debate, has yet to receive any marketing authorization in the European Union. The Meloni government’s move forward to please the Italian agribusiness lobby at the moment is more than a little premature on a debate that has yet to get off the ground. More importantly, it risks going against the rules of the EU internal market.

The laboratory-grown meat—as well as protein intake from insects—are examples of so-called “novel foods”, as Brussels defines those foods that were not consumed “in a relevant way” before May 1997. The category includes new foods, foods from new sources, new substances used in food products as well as new ways and technologies for food production. The Italian government, Eunews learns, notified on July 27 the commission on the farmed meat bill, seven days after it was first given the green light in the senate. Shortly after, however, it backtracked by withdrawing the notification, with a view, presumably, to waiting for the final passage in the house. The legislative initiative was notified to Brussels like any other bill that could technically impede trade by member states within the single market. And that, potentially, could force Brussels to open infringement proceedings against the country.

The government notified the decree to Brussels through the TRIS (Technical Regulation Information) notification system, which has been in operation since 2015 precisely to prevent the creation of barriers in the internal market before they materialize. Member states notify their draft laws and the Commission analyzes them in light of EU legislation. Italy had first notified, then withdrawn the notification (this is at least what Palazzo Chigi said) to wait to conclude the parliamentary process in which the draft law could be modified by amendments before submitting a new notification. Italy, Brussels says, adopted the bill by failing to comply with the standstill period required by European law.

A new clash with Brussels will come when and if there should be a request for an EU trade permit in any member country. The ban on sales and production hinders free movement since it seeks to impose a ban on “food business operators and feed business operators employing in the preparation of food, beverages and feed, selling, holding for sale, importing, producing for export, administering or distributing for food consumption or promoting for the aforementioned purposes food or feed consisting of, isolated from, or produced from cell or tissue cultures derived from vertebrate animals,” as read in Article 2.