INTRODUCTION

In mid-1996, the Commission initiated a package of proposals on food products known as the ‘breakfast directives’, proposing regulations on honey, preserved milk, certain sugars, fruit juices and jams. Aiming to facilitate the free movement of these products in the internal market, the breakfast directives were typical examples of regular European Union legislative decision-making. The Commission sought to simplify existing legislation by harmonising the labelling of food products in the EU. Due to three disputed issues, the directive relating to honey was the last one of the package to be the object of political agreement. The final decisions on the three contested issues were taken at the working group level of the Internal Market Council. One of these issues was about the scope of implementing powers to be conferred upon the Commission through the comitology procedure, raising particular concerns by the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries. The other issues referred to the labelling and denomination of low quality honey. In the end, mutual concessions were made to member states on some issues to ensure their agreement on the directive as a whole. For instance, Germany and the UK obtained generous exceptions regarding the labelling of their products, while the other member states attached less importance to this issue because of the progress made on the other parts of the directive.

Similar examples have often been observed by case studies, which reveal two characteristics of EU legislative decision-making:

1. Member states and the Commission link issues within proposals in particular policy areas (Mattila and Lane 2001). […]