Commissioner Trancassini: “I categorically exclude the hypothesis”
Synthetic meat on the plates of parliamentarians, in the House and in the Senate? Paolo Trancassini, the Melonian police commissioner of Montecitorio, doesn’t want to hear about it: “But it’s something I absolutely rule out – he underlines to Adnkronos – and in any case as long as I’m the police commissioner it won’t happen”.
Trancassini recalls that “not only is there a law that we are discussing these days, a law that will ban these laboratory practices, but above all we are also waging a battle for Made in Italy products here”, he says with reference to the bill on the ban on production, consumption and marketing of food and feed produced in laboratories from cell cultures, in particular synthetic meat approved by Montecitorio.
“Neither here in the Chamber, in the canteen and in the refreshment points – he assures – nor in the family restaurant, a few steps from Montecitorio, will you find synthetic meat, at least as long as I am there in the role of police commissioner”.
Meanwhile, the bill is awaiting final approval in the House – quoted by Trancassini – which should take place on November 16th. According to press rumours, the provision could risk incurring Colle’s doubts: in fact, a careful evaluation is currently underway by the legal offices of the Quirinale as it could expose Italy to an infringement procedure in the EU. Furthermore, the bill which bears the signatures of the Ministers of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida and of Health Orazio Schillaci was put in the dock by the deputies of +Europa who announced that they wanted to present a preliminary ruling on constitutionality “because it violates European rules on the market common and the principle of freedom of enterprise guaranteed by art. 41 of the Italian Constitution”.
The text, approved by the Senate in July, consists of 7 articles and is entitled “Provisions regarding the ban on the production and placing on the market of food and feed consisting of, isolated or produced from cell cultures or tissues derived from animals vertebrates as well as a ban on the denomination of meat for processed products containing vegetable proteins”.
In particular, in Article 1 in indicating the purposes of this law, it is said that it aims to “ensure the protection of human health and the interests of citizens as well as to preserve the agri-food heritage, as a set of products expressing the process of social evolution -economic and cultural of Italy, of strategic importance for the national interest”.
Art 2 refers to the “precautionary principle” (as was the case for the ban on GMOs), contained in Regulation (EC) 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2002, according to which “it is prohibited to food sector operators and feed sector operators to use in the preparation of food, drinks and feed, sell, hold for sale, import, produce for export, administer or distribute for food consumption or promote constituted foods or feed for the aforementioned purposes , isolated or produced from cell or tissue cultures derived from vertebrate animals”. Furthermore, there is a “ban on the denomination of meat for processed products containing vegetable proteins”.
The production and sale of synthetic foods constitutes a “crime” and provides for a “financial sanction from a minimum of 10,000 euros up to a maximum of 60,000 euros or 10% of the total annual turnover. However, the fine cannot exceed 150,000 euros.
Source-www.adnkronos.com