Bad politics is defeated by justice. Loses two lawsuits against the writer’s former v.Minister of Agriculture. The d.lgs. 145/17 (on the location of the plant) is worth waste paper, because of the abuses of Gentiloni government. Confirmation from the Court of Rome and solutions to be adopted.
Plant headquarters and origin decrees, the betrayal of the Gentiloni government
The location of the establishment on the label
of food products-as this writer has always maintained and still maintains-is a Must
For the preservation and enhancement of the
Made in Italy
planetary level. And it must come accompanied by a generous consumer education program, in Italy and in the world.
The Gentiloni government, however deliberately violated the European rules that preside over the adoption of national technical standards. With the certainty of depriving of effectiveness both Leg. 145/17 (laying down the obligation to indicate the establishment headquarters On food labels ‘Made in Italy‘), both the ministerial decrees on the origin of wheat and semolina in pasta, milk in dairy products, rice, tomato In preserves.
All of the aforementioned decrees are unconstitutional (for violation of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, TFEU), note well, not because of ‘bad’ Europe. Which also – with the support of Gentiloni and Italian MEPs who still sit in Strasbourg – adopted the obscene ‘Origin Planet Earth‘ regulation.. (1) The decrees are illegitimate instead because Paolo Gentiloni, Maurizio Martina and
Carlo Calenda
– the self-styled ‘friends of Europe’-have trampled on the ground rules.
Plant headquarters, Andrea Olivero vs. Great Italian Food Trade. Double knockout
Andrea Olivero, former right-hand man of Maurizio Martina, had enjoined the writer to remove articles devoted to space baloney of the government led by Paolo Gentiloni On the location of the plant. Without receiving satisfaction, as Great Italian Food Trade is True to the Line. Of truthful and critical information without gags.
The writer was thus subjected to a lawsuit, in regard to which the Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately asked for the case to be dismissed, and an emergency appeal to the Civil Court of Rome. Which in turn ruled, dismissing Andrea Olivero’s appeal and ordering him to pay court costs.
‘
The contents of thearticle
for which it is cause, albeit with the colorful and vehement expressions typical of the medium of expression used and understandable given the personal and professional profile of the author, who is an expert and enthusiast in food law who has written, among others, four books on the subject of food labeling, does not have a defamatory and offensive character, given The public interest of the information and the substantial truth of the information Propalated, given the defect in the procedural process of D. lgs. 145/2017, for failure to notify, with the consequences indicated from an operational perspective, undermining its mandatory nature‘. (Court of Rome, XVIII Civil Section, Order 3.1.19 in proceeding no. r.g. 41840/2018)
Establishment headquarters, the pronouncement of the Court of Rome
The Civil Court of Rome
, in the aforementioned order, reconstructed the abuses
put in place by Maurizio Martina, Carlo Calenda, Paolo Gentiloni, Beatrice Lorenzin. Who have put in place violations of European law that undermine the effectiveness of Legislative Decree 145/2017. In defiance of Andrea Olivero’s statement instead. An excerpt of the court’s ruling follows.
‘Legislative Decree 145/2017, which requires food manufacturers to list on food labels the location of the production or, if different, packaging establishment on the packaging, published in the Official Gazette on 7/10/2017, is lacking in its process of perfection and effectiveness because it has not been duly notified to the European Commission, based on Directive 98/34 EU, replaced by Directive 2015/1535 /EU.
Based on the aforementioned directive there is an information procedure in the area of standards and technical regulations for the movement of goods, products, persons, services and capital in the Union market, understood as an area without internal borders, whereby member states wishing to introduce a national law are required to make the notification to the European Commission, so that the Commission can ensure that the law does not conflict with EU rules and, if necessary, order the suspension of the legislative process for a minimum period of three months to propose amendments to the planned measure.
In the present case, Italy notified the European Commission of its proposed law on 3/30/2017, but it was subject to a detailed opinion of the European Commission on 3/7/2017, which ruled out its legitimacy due to the incompatibility of the draft decree with EU Regulation No. 1169/2011, on food labeling, in that it provides for mandatory information in food labels in addition to that established by the EU regulation mentioned in the exhaustive list of that art. 9.
The issuance of a detailed opinion
entails an obligation for the member state that prepared the draft technical regulation to postpone its adoption for six months, starting from the date of the communication.
Italy subsequently made a further notification on September 20, 2017 under Art. 114 of the TFEU, but the European Commission informed the Italian government of the inadmissibility of the notification to Brussels of Legislative Decree 145 /2017, by letter dated January 28, 2018 addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Economic Cooperation.
Based on the interpretation on several occasions provided by the Court of Justice, the failure to comply with the obligation to notify a technical regulation, due to the consequent contrast to the Union legislation, entails the inapplicability of the domestic regulation and its unenforceability against private individuals, with the consequence that the latter can make use of the procedural defect – the failure to notify – to plead the inapplicability of the domestic technical regulations against them before the national courts, which are responsible for the disapplication of a domestic technical regulation that has not been notified in accordance with the aforementioned directive.’
Conclusions
The rights of information and criticism maintain an essential role in constitutional democracy. Therefore, it is worth this brief news report to warn the miscreants and their azzes against Great Italian Food Trade and the serious journalism community. We are True to the Line of information without gags, we face intimidation, we shun the
fake news
.
On the location of the plant and the origin of the raw materials, unfortunately, however, it is all up in the air. The abuses of the previous government can never be remedied, as the decrees were issued in violation of the essential rules of notification of technical standards. Rather, the current government should move:
– immediately, to notify Brussels of the draft decree on the mandatory indication of theorigin of meat
served in public establishments,
– next May, with the European Commission coming, to introduce serious rules at the EU level that are consistent with the interests of the agroindustrial supply chain and consumAtors. In two words, establishment location (‘Made in‘) and raw material origin mandatory and precise. #eatoriginal
Eat ORIGINal! Unmask your food
is the European Citizens’ Initiative that we all need to join by adding our signature at the link
https://www.eatoriginal.eu/.
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) See reg. EU 2018/775
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
