As reported by Vremya Novostei, the European Union's committee for managing agro-industrial markets recently decided to revise, from July 1 of the following year, the norms regarding the appearance of 26 varieties of vegetables and fruits. In particular, by summer 2009, the uniform requirements for all EU states concerning the shape, size, color, and diameter of agricultural products are to change.
At the same time, supporters of the standard adjustments assured that they were acting in the interests of vegetable consumers. The rather strict restrictions—for example, for cucumbers, the norms required that the deviation from the longitudinal axis be no more than 10 mm per 10 cm of fruit length—allowed agricultural producers to easily explain the need to raise prices on their products by citing tireless care for the appearance of the goods and high losses from rejections. However, during the voting, they remained in the minority against the backdrop of lobbyists for European farmers' interests—primarily from Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, whose representatives argued that consumers would not appreciate the lowering of appearance requirements anyway, and the agricultural sector would suffer noticeable damage. As AFP notes, only the qualified majority rule used in the voting in the EU committee on agro-industrial markets prevented the rejection of amendments to appearance standards, which, as even European Commission President José Manuel Barroso admitted, the whole world had long been laughing at.
In Brussels, they now do not hide their satisfaction that "the rules determining the size and shape of fruits and vegetables are becoming history." At the same time, European Commission representatives emphasize that consumers will definitely not suffer, because other crucial criteria of the product—its safety and freshness—remain unchanged. "We should not regulate the appearance of products at the EU level. It is much better to leave this to market operators," said EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel after the vote. She stressed that especially today, amid the financial crisis, consumers should have the right to choose across a wide price range. "There is no point in throwing away good products just because they supposedly have the wrong shape," the EU commissioner believes. She is fully supported by representatives of Great Britain, which was one of the initiators of the revision of the 'vegetable' standards. "Food is food regardless of how it looks. These crazy rules must immediately become a thing of the past," the BBC quotes British MEP and chairman of the European Parliament's agriculture committee Neil Parish.
However, as acknowledged in Brussels, it was only through concessions that they managed to breach the impregnable defenses of EU member states with a significant share of agricultural production. The continental appearance standards for the ten most popular fruits and vegetables will remain unchanged. If, say, strict requirements are lifted for the appearance of cucumbers, beans, carrots, zucchini, melons, watermelons, onions, spinach, Brussels sprouts, etc., then standards will remain for apples, citrus fruits, kiwi, lettuce, peaches and nectarines, pears, strawberries, sweet peppers, grapes, and tomatoes. European Commission representative Michael Mann called this a sufficient compromise, noting that substandard agricultural products from the 'untouchable' category can also be sold provided they are appropriately labeled, for example with the inscription 'for further processing'.