ATLA (Association de la Transformation Laitière Française) represents the French dairy industry and cooperatives, manufacturing all sorts of dairy products (including cheese, milk, fresh dairy products, cream and butter).
ATLA welcomes the opportunity of the TRIS procedure on this Ordinance notified by Germany to the European Commission regarding the dairy product legislation, which aims at preventing the appearance of technical barriers to trade.
ATLA considers the submitted text under notification n°2025/0158/DE as a technical barrier to trade, for four main reasons (please see our full comments enclosed) :
- Section 2 §10 - Mandatory fat content labelling for consumption milk
The draft text foresees an additional specific mandatory labelling of the fat content for consumption milk which goes beyond the applicable EU rules
The additional mandatory requirement to label the fat content of milk is not justified by any ground from article 39 of regulation 1169/2011 related to national measures on additional mandatory particulars (the protection of public health, the protection of consumers, the prevention of fraud, the protection of industrial and commercial property rights, indications of provenance, registered designations of origin and the prevention of unfair competition).
This mandatory labelling is going beyond the EU applicable rules and represents a technical barrier to trade. In addition, this information is already available for the consumer in the nutritional table.
- Section 3 §13 & §17 - Definition of Butter varieties and mandatory labelling
The draft text defines in section 3 §13 different varieties of butter. These varieties are not defined at EU level and §17 states that the company must label the butter with an information of the butter variety concerned. These butter categories are not defined at EU level and do not refer to higher quality products.
These varieties and subsequent mandatory labelling are going beyond the EU applicable rules and represent technical barriers to trade.
- Section 6 and related products defined under annex 8 - Food additives restrictions
The food additives authorisations are harmonised at EU level by regulation (EC) 1333/2008 which prescribe which food additives are authorised in which food categories. A national text cannot restrict the use of food additives in certain products. We understand that the draft text foresees a ban of the use of additives in products defines under Annex 8 I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, X and XI which include for instance: sour milk products, cream products, yoghurt products…
This is going against EU regulation, for example, in the case of the product named "Ayran" which can be heat-treated according to the draft text, EU regulation foresees that Group I additives are authorised in all unflavoured fermented milk products heat-treated after fermentation.
These food additives restrictions represent technical barriers to trade.
- Free movement of goods in the EU - Section 8 §62
The draft text does not include any clause of mutual recognition allowing for products legally manufactured or marketed in another Member State of the European Union that do not comply with the rules of the laid down by this text to freely enter the German market, in accordance with the TFEU.
However, §62 provides that the provisions of article 17.2 and 3 of Regulation 1169/2011 apply mutatis mutandis to the designations defined therein. EU rules always apply to food products put on the European market. Only in the case where consumers in the Member State of marketing are not able to know the true nature of the food and to distinguish it from foods with which they could confuse it, the name of the food shall be accompanied by other descriptive information which shall appear in proximity to the name of the food.
This provision from the EU regulation cannot be used to systematically impose additional labelling requirements on the labelling of products legally marketed in other EU member states. The current wording is very ambiguous and seems to imply that any legally produced dairy product whose name is define in the German ordinance and not compliant with its prescription should bear a descriptive information related to the difference.
This addition seems to be a very important technical barrier to trade for products coming from other members states.
