Last-minute proposals from MEP Céline Imart ended up scrapping the plan to ban the use of terms such as “burger” or “sausage” in vegan products. The topic will be discussed again in January.
Brussels has failed to reach agreement on whether plant-based foods can continue to use terms like “veggie burger” or “vegan sausage”, after tense negotiations between EU member states and the European Parliament collapsed on Wednesday night. The impasse leaves one of the bloc’s most unusual regulatory battles unresolved, at least until negotiations resume in January.
The dispute centers on a proposal led by the center-right French MEP Celine Imarta grain farmer from the south of France, who has pushed for strict limits on the use of traditional meat terminology in plant-based products. His plan, criticized as “unnecessary” by some within his own political group, had been quietly inserted into a broader and largely unrelated reform of EU agricultural market rules.
According to several officials involved in the negotiations, Wednesday’s meeting quickly spiraled out of control. Imart tried reopen excerpts from the legislative text which negotiators believed were already defined, including the rules governing influential agricultural cooperatives, and also presented a series of variable alternative options on dairy contracts, a politically sensitive issue for several Member States, but without committing to a version that their counterparts in Parliament could support.
Tensions rose further when Imart unexpectedly proposed add new protected termsincluding “liver” and “ham,” to the list of meat names that plant-based foods would be banned from using. “It was a big mess,” a Parliamentary official told .
EU countries, led by Denmark during the negotiations, said they had no mandate to move forward with either the naming restrictions or the provisions on dairy product contracts. With both sides refusing to give in, negotiations were stalled. “We were unable to reach an agreement,” Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen later confirmed.
Imart said the impasse was surmountable, declaring in a statement that “dairy contracts and meat-related names still require further clarification” and insisting that “tangible progress” had been made.
Some parliamentarians, however, expressed relief at the failure. Dutch MEP Anna Strolenberg, from the Green Party, said she was pleased that they had not been stricter rules negotiated for the nomenclature of plant-based products in exchange for concessions in the protection of dairy producers.
For now, popular products like veggie burgers and vegan nuggets will keep their names — at least until Brussels’ most peculiar food fight resumes next year.
