Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on food intended for infants and young children and on food for special medical purposes

The proposal revises the legislation on foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses covered by Directive 2009/39/EC the so-called "Framework Directive on dietetic foods". The provisions of Directive 2009/39/EC were originally adopted in 1977. After several amendments, a recast version was adopted in 2009 to include the rules of the new Comitology procedure.

After more than 30 years of application, the evolution of both the food market and food legislation makes an overall revision necessary. The classification of many foods as 'dietetic' foods and the need for such a category of foods has been seriously questioned, although the desirability of maintaining rules on certain specific categories of foods actually addressing nutritional benefits for certain sub-groups of the population is being recognised.

Therefore the proposal abolishes the concept of 'dietetic' foods and provides for a new framework establishing general provisions only for a limited number of well-established and defined categories of food that are considered as essential for certain vulnerable groups of the population, i.e. food intended for infants and young children and food for patients under medical supervision.

EUR-Lex: COM(2011)353: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2011:353:FIN

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