Press Release 01.12.2025

foodwatch warns: the EU’s “Omnibus” reform is a direct threat to food safety and democratic law-making

  • politics and law

The leaked draft of the European Commission’s upcoming Omnibus on food and feed safety exposes an alarming attempt to dismantle essential consumer protections under the guise of “simplification” and “competitiveness.” foodwatch’s preliminary analysis of the 94-page proposal reveals profound risks for public health, transparency, and democratic accountability. On 27 November, the EU-Ombudswoman concluded that the Commission had committed maladministration when preparing several “urgent” legislative proposals on corporate sustainability due diligence, countering migrant smuggling and the common agricultural policy (CAP), failing to justify the urgency, bypassing transparency obligations, and neglecting required evidence-based assessments.

The document, due to be officially published on 16 December, shows that the Commission intends to rewrite rules on pesticides, pesticide residues, feed additives, BSE safeguards, and border controls in a single legislative sweep. Unless stopped, this package will weaken ten major EU food safety regulations at once — placing the interests of agrifood giants ahead of the wellbeing of 450 million Europeans, criticized foodwatch. For the international consumer organization, this signals not simplification, but a systemic rollback of decades of hard-won safeguards, many of which were adopted in the wake of major food scandals.

Natacha Cingotti, Lead Campaign Strategist at foodwatch International, warns: "Citizens — and the protections built over decades of EU law-making — seem to be the forgotten victims of what looks like a predictable disaster. This exercise of dismantling safeguards strikes at the very core of the European food safety system that the rest of the world envies. We need stronger laws and better implementation, not shortcuts for agrifood corporations. We will be watching every step of this process and will continue to speak out for safe, transparent, high-quality food."

A ‘Simplification’ Agenda Disguised as Technical Tidying

Despite its far-reaching consequences, the Omnibus was prepared without even a basic impact assessment on consumer health, the environment, or animal welfare — a clear breach of EU Better Regulation standards. This opacity is not trivial: last week, the European Ombudswoman concluded that the Commission had already engaged in maladministration by abusing “urgency” procedures and bypassing required transparency for other Omnibus initiatives.

foodwatch is particularly critical of four issues:

1) Pesticides: fewer controls, outdated science, and delayed bans

The draft text would:

- make unlimited pesticide authorisations the rule,

- remove mandatory reassessments based on the latest scientific knowledge,

- extend grace periods for banned substances to up to three years.

Why it matters:

Without systematic reviews, harmful substances already on the market will remain authorised for decades. Recent bans of pesticides such as Chlorpyrifos and Mancozeb — triggered by updated scientific evidence — would likely never have happened under such a weakened regime.

2) Pesticide residues (MRLs): freezing exposure limits in the past

The Commission proposes to maintain maximum residue limits as they were at the time of production and to scrap regular reviews of temporary MRLs.

Why it matters:

MRLs decrease because new science shows health risks. Freezing outdated limits locks in higher exposure to hazardous substances, directly undermining consumer protection.

3) Bovine sponginform encephalopathy (BSE) safeguards: undoing what prevented a continent-wide crisis

The text argues that rules adopted after the BSE crisis are “no longer proportionate.”

Why it matters:

The current low incidence of BSE is precisely due to strict controls. Weakening them — including redefining which tissues are considered high-risk — reopens the door to contamination in products ranging from gelatine to capsules, desserts and broths.

3) Feed additives: less control, less transparency

The Omnibus would eliminate the 10-year renewal of feed additive authorisations and shift labelling rules towards digital-only formats.

Why it matters:

Feed additives enter the food chain through farming and food processing. Reducing control and transparency increases long-term risks for both human and animal health.

4) Border controls: rushing goods ahead of proper checks

The proposal would allow parts of consignments to be released faster during checks.

Why it matters:

At a time when border authorities are already overstretched, this accelerates trade at the expense of precaution — inviting more food fraud, more blind spots, and more risks.

A Political Choice: Deregulation Over Protection

The Omnibus is not a technical correction but a political project: a consolidated effort to remove what powerful agrifood and chemical industries consider “burdens”, even when those rules protect public health. At no point does the proposal acknowledge the consumer interest or the lessons of past food safety scandals.

Safety measures are not administrative inconveniences. They are the frontline defence that keeps carcinogens, neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors, prions, and fraudulent food products away from European consumers’ plates.

foodwatch calls for better protection laws rather than dilution

foodwatch urges the Commission to protect, rather than dilute, Europe’s food safety standards, public health and the environment. foodwatch presses the European Commission to withdraw this proposal and commit instead to strengthening, not weakening, the EU’s food safety system. European citizens expect better law-making — not less. The Commission must ensure that transparency, scientific evidence, and public interest remain the foundations of EU food policy.

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