The European Union’s highest court has ruled that Denmark may set stricter limits on cancer-causing substances in food than the European Commission allows.
In 1995, the EU passed a law setting community-wide limits on food additives. Denmark opposed the law at the time, on the grounds that it failed to meet health requirements for nitrates, nitrites and sulphites. Denmark has tougher limits on such additives, which may cause cancer or lesions in the digestive tract, than the rest of the EU, reported Reuters.
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Four years later, the European Commission ruled that Denmark could not retain its own stricter limits any longer.
The European Court of Justice has now overturned the Commission’s decision, leaving aside a rule that says a country must have new scientific evidence in order to change limits.
Given the “uncertainty inherent in assessing public health risks, divergent assessments of those risks can legitimately be made,” the court said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.
“A member state which asks to maintain derogating national provisions may argue that its assessment of the risk to public health is different from that made by the Community legislature,” it said.
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