Cultured meat, what the European Commission decided on the Italian ban

Brussels has informed Italy that it has violated European procedures regarding the approval of the ban on cultured meat.

• For the European Commission, with the approval of the law on cultured meat before the closure of the Tris notification, Italy violated European procedures.
• In light of this violation, national judges could declare the law unenforceable.
• For Minister Lollobrigida the law is compatible with EU law, while the opposition speaks of rejecting the ban.

There European Commission communicated to Italy the early closure of the Tris notification procedure on the law prohibiting the production and marketing of cultured meat and the use of meat sounding terms for plant products "because the text was adopted" by the member country "before the expiry of the suspension period" provided for by EU Directive 1535 of 2015.

Ban on cultured meat, what the European Commission said to Italy

What does it mean?The directive provides that, through the Tris notifications, Member States and the Commission have the opportunity to comment on a draft law that could hinder the European single market before it is approved;in this case, however, the law was approved before the suspension period provided for by the procedure, effectively making the notification useless and violating the regulation.

As well as highlighting this violation to Italy, the Commission invited the government to inform it of the follow-up given to the initiative undertaken also in light of the jurisprudence on the matter of the Court of Justice, which has already established that the laws adopted in violation of European procedure can be declared inapplicable by national judges.

Lollobrigida:“Law on cultured meat compatible with EU law”

The Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida stated:“The closure of the Tris procedure means that the compatibility of the rule with the principles of Community law on the internal market has been definitively ascertained by the European Commission.Otherwise, the Commission would have proceeded with a detailed opinion, regardless of the notification method.There will therefore be no infringement procedure, nor will Italy be asked to repeal the law.The Commission only asks to be informed about the application of the law by national judges.As with all measures that come into force in Italy, it is up to the national judges, when applying them, to further examine their compatibility with community law".

For the government's opposition, this is in fact a rejection of the ban

The opponents of the government, on the contrary, interpreted the Commission's communication as one failure for the ban on cultured meat:“A law that was dead even before it was born”, commented some MPs 5 Star Movement, while the PD he spoke of an "international disgrace for Lollobrigida".