Palms off our Camembert! France kicks up a stink over draft EU recycling legislation

Former French President Charles de Gaulle warned years in the past: “How will you govern a rustic which has 246 styles of cheese?” Brussels ought to have listened.

French cheesemakers are rallying towards a proposed EU recycling legislation, accusing Brussels of endangering one of many nation’s most prized conventional meals. 

The draft legislation goals to part out single-use packaging in favor of recycled supplies. However French cheese producers worry the brand new regulation poses a menace to conventional packaging, comparable to Camembert’s distinctive picket field.

French media have seized on the cheesemongers’ considerations, accusing the EU of threatening France’s “gastronomic treasures,” saying that sure cheeses would inevitably lose their “geographic indication” seal and warning that as much as 2,000 jobs may very well be affected.

French Secretary of State for European Affairs Laurence Boone has joined the refrain of involved voices, warning Brussels that it dangers a PR catastrophe simply months earlier than the European election. 

“If we wish to caricature Europe earlier than the elections, let’s hassle Camembert producers and their picket packaging,” Boone advised POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook and a bunch of different reporters in an off-the-cuff dialog. “It makes everybody leap up from their seats.”

A European Fee spokesperson stated the legislation wouldn’t forestall the usage of picket packaging, as feared by some in France’s cheese trade. 

“Producers might need to … enhance the recycling or reuse of the picket bins,” the spokesperson stated. “However that may additionally apply to producers of different forms of packaging.”

However packaging producers warn that introducing a recycling system for wooden can be too costly and need an exemption for Camembert bins — which they are saying are biodegradable and produce much less waste than plastic.

“Recycling is important, encouraging corporations to make use of recyclable packaging is important, however we additionally want a bit of pragmatic realism,” Boone stated.

The legislation nonetheless must be agreed by the European Parliament and nationwide governments, and the Fee spokesperson stated Brussels was engaged on “resolving all of the excellent questions and points, in dialogue with the trade.”

It isn’t the primary time Brussels has confronted a PR situation over meals guidelines. For years, the EU didn’t shake off the concept Brussels banned bananas that had been too “flexible” — a declare that pro-EU campaigners discovered exhausting to counter within the lead as much as the U.Ok.’s Brexit referendum in 2016.