A ruling this month by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) means that it will be harder in future for individual EU states to impose their own low maximum limits for vitamins and minerals.
The ECJ ruling relates to a 2015 case in which the French authorities launched criminal proceedings against Noria Distribution – a French distributor of brands including Solaray, Bioveillance and Harmony Dietetics – for placing products on the market in France that exceed maximum vitamin levels stipulated by French law.
The company didn’t contest the allegations but argued that since these same products were legally on sale in other EU Member States at the same levels, that either mutual recognition, or the free movement of goods provisions within the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, should prevail.
Believing that the French authorities’ action was in breach of EU law, Noria Distribution took the case to the highest court in Europe.
Explaining the case brought before the ECJ, campaign group Alliance for Natural Health International says: “The Noria case asked three key questions of the ECJ. The most important revolves around whether, when there’s an apparent conflict between an excessively restrictive national law and less restrictive EU law under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (such as free movement of goods and mutual recognition), does the EU law take precedence over national law?
“Cut through all the legal jargon and the answer is quite simply that France has to comply with the principle of the free movement of goods in the EU. Put simply – treaty is king. The French legislation that led to this situation is exerting a quantitative restriction on products that pose no risk to public health. Hence, such products must be allowed to be sold in France if there is no discernible risk to public health.”
“Cut through all the legal jargon and the answer is quite simply that France has to comply with the principle of the free movement of goods in the EU. Put simply – treaty is king”
Patrick Coppens, director of regulatory and scientific affairs at Food Supplements Europe said in an interview with nutraingredients.com: “This ruling is not a surprise because the Court is just confirming what it has said before. Which is that if member states want to set their own limits for vitamins and minerals they should do it on the basis of scientific assessment. In other words, there should be a safety reason for the maximum levels – and on that basis, limits can actually be quite high.”
