International Food Safety Issues EU positions papers for Codex Alimentarius CCFFV – Codex Committee on Fresh Fruit and Vegetables

European Community Common position on the 9th session of the CODEX Committee for Fresh Fruit and Vegetables

Agenda item 2a : Matters of interest to the Committee arising from the Codex alimentarius Commission and other Codex Committees :

- Par. 17-19 : Codex Committee on Food Hygiene :

The CCFH will soon examine a proposed draft code of hygienic practice for primary production, harvesting and packaging of fresh produce (at step 3).

Given the character specific to fresh fruit and vegetables of this draft code of practice, the European Community wishes the CCFFV to be consulted and to be able to express an opinion on this document before its adoption.

Agenda item 2b : Matters of interest related to the standardisation of fresh fruit and vegetables arising from other international organisations :

The European Community points out certain inaccuracies of document CX/FFV 00/3 which can cause confusion on the results of the last meetings of the UN/ECE's WP.7, its specialised section on fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as of the OECD Scheme for the application of international standards fort fruit and vegetables.

The European Community invites the Codex Secretariat to continue attending the meetings of the WP.7, of its specialised section on the fresh fruit and vegetables and of the Plenary Meeting of the OECD Scheme, in order to contribute to the best possible co-ordination with these organisations, in particular with regard to the provisions contained in the CCFFV mandate on this subject.

The European Community wishes in addition the CCFFV Chairman and the Codex Secretariat to take part in the consultations that the OECD Scheme will initiate in order to recognise the duplication of work and, moreover, identify an agreed course of action between the three international organisations to minimise the duplication of work.

Agenda item 3d and 3e : Draft Codex standards for asparagus and for oranges (including the guide for use in scoring freezing injury) :

The European Community made, in a separate document, comments on the draft standards in question.

With regard to document ALINORM 99/35 App. IX (Draft standard Codex for oranges), the European Community wishes to inform of the following complementary comments :

-Maturity requirement:

The European Community reiterates its concern of not seeing adopted any standard for oranges which would result in an increase in the risks of presence on the markets of products not having reached a sufficient degree of maturity. As it stands now, the draft Codex standard for oranges facilitates certain fraudulent practice such as, for example, sale of immature oranges with green skin to the consumers. The European Community is convinced that orange producers in the whole world will strongly be penalised by consumer disaffection with respect to oranges.

Traditionally, in the whole world, coloration is used as the major criterion for evaluating the maturity of oranges, even when oranges are produced in the Tropics and that they stay of a green colour. If one takes the decision that colouring cannot be anymore an absolute maturity criterion, legally recognised, the European Community considers that it must then be made sure that at least equivalent maturity requirements are included in addition to the Codex standard for oranges.

-Annex: guide for use in scoring freezing injury

The European Community proposes that this annex, which consists primarily of interpretation of the provisions of the Codex standard for oranges on a very specific point, be suppressed.

Agenda item 3f : Outstanding provisions in Codex standards for fresh fruit and vegetables

The European Community points out that the UN/ECE standard for citrus fruit has recently been revised in order to better reflect the of international trade practices and their developments. This revision covered in particular the provisions concerning sizing of pummelos, grapefruits and limes as well as the minimum juice content of limes, but it also covered numerous other provisions.

With regard to sizing, the European Community draws attention to the fact that sizing by count is not sufficient to guarantee the transparency of the standard. It is necessary to know two other data so that the size of the fruit could be deduced from the simple indication of the count in the package:

- applicable rules of size uniformity, for example a maximum variation between the smallest or the lightest fruit and the largest or the heaviest one;

- size of the package.

The European Community wishes, if one incorporates sizing by count into the Codex standards for citrus fruit, the two above-mentioned problems to be taken into account so that Codex standards remain the most transparent possible.

4d item 4b, 4c and of the agenda : Codex standard preliminary drafts for the apples, the table grapes and the tomatoes :

The European Community made, in a separate document, comments on these agenda items.

Item 6 : Proposals for an amendment in the list of the fresh fruit and vegetables having to be the subject first of all of a standard, and Item 7 : Future work and other business :

With regard to new products on the list or with regard to the decision to work out a Codex standard for the products already on the list of priorities, the European Community wishes the CCFFV, in particular when there are other international standards not posing particular problems for such products, to take account of the provisions of the medium-term Plan 1998/2002, according to which the development of standards by commodity has to be engaged only when it is justified.

If the CCFFV considers, despite the fact that other international standards have existed for several decades without that seeming to have posed problems to the international trade of fresh fruit and vegetables, the Community wishes, for the products being the subject of a UN/ECE standard, the CCFFV to ask the UN/ECE Working Party WP.7 to prepare the proposed draft Codex standard for the products concerned, in accordance with what the mandate of the CCFFV anticipates (point 2 of the footnote), this in order to minimise the duplication of work.

The European Community wishes the Codex standard for avocados to be revised in order to take account of the changes recently made to the UN/ECE standard for this product. It proposes that the CCFFV ask the UN/ECE Working Party WP.7 to prepare a draft proposed revised Codex standard for avocados, for the purposes of distribution at step 3 and discussion at the next session of the Committee.

If appropriate, a revision of the various Codex standards covering citrus fruits could also be led under the same conditions, in order to take account of the recent modifications of the UN/ECE standard for citrus fruit, which reflects better henceforth the international commercial practices.

International Food Safety Issues EU positions papers for Codex Alimentarius CCFFV – Codex Committee on Fresh Fruit and Vegetables
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