Belgium calls for EU help against French gastronationalism
politico.eu/article/belgium-calls-for-eu-help...
politico.euPosted Jul 14, 2017, 11:03 PM UTC
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politico.euThis seems rather hypocritical to me. The regions are very active in advertising and labelling domestic foodstuffs.
(also note the somewhat interesting data in the enclosed pdf, e.g. Belgium exports about 60.000 tons of meat and dairy to France every month)
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The French labeling goes a bit further. Currently labeling is used for the product itself only such as the eggs the consumer buy were produced in Belgium, etc. In France, labels are introduced for the ingredients to make a product are now part of that label which is the issue being contested as far as I recall since that forces producers (high volume buyers).
I agree with that these labels (all forms) undermine the idea of the Single Market.
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Heaven forbid the French become self-sufficient in their food production. Instead of complaining about it, they should simply do the same.
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If France would limit imports from Belgium, I'd share their outrage. But what's happening now is just the result of the choice of the French consumers. You might think that the French are a bunch chauvinistic dicks, but there's nothing inheretly wrong with this.
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Is this real?
Is it satire or does the government really have nothing better to do?
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What is so bad about it? If France implemented a measure that provably harms belgian interests then I expect our government to raise a complaint, especially when it may go against EU rules. Larger countries don't get to break the treaties just because they are larger.
I really don't understand why you think that's wrong. Should Belgium just bend over and not protect Belgians/Belgian industry? It's not like filing a complaint means our government can't do anything else in the meantime...
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So we can't address French rising protectionism which hurts us economically?
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Nop.
We litterly cant.
But bigger powers can.
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I guess that's why we address it to the EU.
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The government has real data proving French legislation undermines the Single Market and Belgian interest and you think that is wasting time? And here I thought you were all about having the government help people (Belgian farmers) in this case.
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Free market blablabla.
It has 2 sides. Take it or leave it
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This is government intervention, not the free market. So yeah...
Then again you aren't to try and make a point so gg.
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What government intervention? It are French consumers that choose to buy local products over imports. That's the free market at work.
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this is literally what the EU is there for.
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Really?
Wow.. And i toughy it was because of migrant crisis and stuff like thay.
Edit : /s
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no, its to develop an ever closer union by free movement of goods, services, capital and people.
Europe has done very little for the refugee crisis as its not entirely certain that it falls within its purview.
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I think I'm actually with the French on this one. Knowing a product's origin is useful to know if you want to limit your ecological footprint.
Eating pork is a horrible thing for the environment, but Belgium is one of the most energy-efficient Pig meat producers in the world.
not in all cases. Origin doesn't tell you how much water and energy were used to raise it. It doesn't tell you if it got to you in an efficient supply chain, or if a farmer just drove it over in his diesel car.
That's fair enough, but it's still better than nothing. Even if you don't assume all other factors are equal, you might know that certain countries are bad at enforcing certain standards.
This is the biggest pitfall of the free market in my opinion. Customers barely know where their products come from, how they were made, ... Labeling the country of origin is at least a small step in the right direction.
But like you said, consumers no little to nothing about their food. Of all the things that go into what does country of origin ( country of last major transformation) do functionally?
If Dutch tomatoes are in greenhouses heated by burning fossil fuels, what does saying they're Dutch actually give a consumer?
There is nothing to causally link locality and reduced energy use, it's incidental at best in most cases.
This makes it a step in any old direction (neither right nor wrong).
Logistics mostly. Buying French or Dutch products doesn't really matter for us, our country is small enough that both are close enough. Importing tomatoes by boat however would be a different thing altogether. Unlike cars (and trucks), boats are under very little ecological regulations because they spend most of their time in international waters.
If ecology was the reason behind the labeling for it, you could ague this. You know it isn't the reason. Also if ecology really mattered you would only eat seasonal vegetables and only vegetables that can be grown in open fields, not greenhouses. To do that you don't even need labeling. Eating seasonally is already the cheapest and most ecologically best thing to do and labeling in't required to promote that, people just need to bother.
While that may not be the primary driver for the introduction of these labels, it does help conscious consumers to make an informed decision.
So instead of prohibiting it and depriving customers of making up their own mind (similar to GMO labeling), we could insist on making it more local (e.g provinces)
No, it doesn't. As said if that "conscious" consumer really cared about those things he would be eating seasonally and you need no labels for that. Those labels are for people with a stick up their butt to act all superior for their "organic and healthy" lifestyle; while eating their "ecological" Belgian tomatoes.
Also informed decision? What information do you really have with this label? Do you know its supply line? Its fertilization process? What about its pest control policy.. Greenhouse or no greenhouse... etc. You have no real relevant information to really decide that this one French vegetable is truly more ecological than the Belgian vegetable. But hey at least you have your assumptions, right?
Also a consumer that informs himself/herself based on labels is not informed, nor conscious; those are people who want to act like they are.
Mentioning an anti-science label as an example of something good isn't helping your case.
Furthermore do these people even eat anything? All food are genetic freaks designed by humans for millenia. "GMO" (the name is really apt for anything we eat) is just the latest technique in a tradition as old as human farming.
So instead of forcing idiotic labels with nonsense information to make people feel as if they are informed, why not have these advocates just do the easiest thing: start eating fresh and seasonally.
Again start eating seasonal. I don't get why this is such a hard thing to get. It is cheaper and results in eating locally. But then again many people who say this never seem willing to trade in their tomato for the delicious celeriac.
Not only does the article explicitly mention meat and dairy products, which are not seasonal and don't need to be transported over long distances. It's not because you think it's silly that others need to share that view and be deprived of their right to choose.
Same for GMOs btw. For some that's a question of not supporting even more pesticides in our environment instead of less. And that's not an anti-science based opinion, but a factual one https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/business/gmo-promise-falls-short.html?mcubz=0
...But your entire comment is only about eating seasonal.
Even if something is in season, I care if it's from Belgium, or flown in from Morocco. You need a label for that.
No you don't, because seasonal (seasonal is considered locally not what is in season in Morocco) vegetables and fruits are bought locally since that is always cheaper because then you only get real Belgian fruits and veggies. Do you know that what is seasonal in Belgium isn't seasonal in Morocco at all? In Morocco you won't find the Celeriac.
... Then why do I have both Moroccan and Dutch green beans at the same time in the supermarket? And don't get me started about apples: why the fuck do we have apples from Chili flown in? We have like a billion types of apples right here.
I really don't get why you're so against letting people know where there food is coming from. Whataboutism at its most annoying.
The French have actually been doing a few things to 'clean up' their supermarkets ecologically. They've also been doing a few things in terms of reducing waste, and selling weirdly shaped food at discounts. There's a chance ecology was at least on their mind while writing these laws, as well as the obvious economical advantages for them.
Even the economic reason is a good one. They aren't forcing people to buy national. They're just making obvious what is national and what isn't. It's basically allowing an informed choice. Horrible, right? Though it would also depend on how easily the label is obtained. It's nonsense if you can get the label simply by packaging the final product you got elsewhere. But as it's not the simple, already existing "made in x" you see on most products, I doubt it's that easy.
Labels and their design have steering effect. Labels are never neutral.
Nationalism adds no real value. Because then we should also add the nationalities of the worker who actually worked on the product so those can make "informed choices"... I know plenty of people who would love that!
Packaging isn't even a meaningful transformative action even for that label.
I'd be more interested in knowing what the average wage is of the people who worked on the products. :) Wouldn't have to be on the products itself, but a public database with that information would be nice.
And ofcourse they make a difference, because people want to buy local if possible. I know the milk I buy has a Belgian flag on it.
Not all cases : the transport footprint is much lower with a Flemish producer selling goods in Lille than stuff made in Marseille that is consumed in Saint-Malo