Dr. Frank's What's-it

Every Time I Eat Vegetables, I Think of EU

While I believe this writer's vaguely conspiracy-theory- and anti-corporate-driven unease is misplaced, this is nonetheless an interesting account of the story behind the "EU struggles to define sauce as a vegetable" story. The verdict: "such stories confirm all our worst fears about Brussels and the EU writ large;" not only that, but they have the added, and, for the article's author, the unexpected, benefit of actually being true.

Yesterday's Times describes the Euro-bureau-neuro-sis of the "nomenclature sub-group of the customs code committee" thus:

The EU’s maximum “lump limit” is currently set at 20 per cent. This was originated to stop importers avoiding high tariffs on vegetables by disguising them as sauces.

Regulation 288/97 states: “The expression ‘sauce’ does not cover a preparation of vegetables, fruit or other edible plants if the percentage of those ingredients passing through a metal wire sieve with an aperture of five millimetres is, after rinsing in water of a temperature of 20C, less than 80 per cent by weight calculated on the original preparation.” Put simply, that means that a tinned sauce does not qualify as a sauce if it is more than one-fifth lumps.

Worse still, "even a sauce containing meat can be classed as a vegetable if the meat content is less than about 18 per cent."

EU regulators have an able adversary in "Le Comité des Industries des Mayonnaises et Sauces Condimentaires de l’Union Européenne," who despite their Euro-ic name can score propaganda coups merely by quoting euro-jargon and letting the press do its thing.

For Britons who feel like Chicken Tonight, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement must be looking looking just a bit tastier...

Posted by Dr. Frank at January 11, 2002 06:05 PM | TrackBack