Brussels sprouts new rules for vegetables

The European Union has finally decided to call an apple an apple and do away with unnecessary rules and regulations that proscribed import of some 26 fruits and vegetables that do no conform to certain shapes sizes and textures.

The law, which barred shops from storing cucumbers that are too curved and carrots that are either soft or too hard will now finally be off the book, but regulations on some 10 fruits and vegetables, including apples, citrus fruit, peaches, pears, strawberries and tomatoes, will still remain.

While some 26 varieties of vegetables and fruits, ranging from celery to cucumbers can now be freely imported, the 10 regulated items can also be allowed to be sold within the EU as substandard items.

EU regulators have often been criticised in the British media which carried news stories about the permitted angle or curvature of fruits and vegetables, which have often been the cause of high prices of commodities in the European Union.

Fir example, Commission Regulation (EC) 2257/94 says that bananas must be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature," though Class 1 bananas can have "slight defects of shape" and Class 2 bananas can have full "defects of shape."

Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 states that Class I and "Extra class" cucumbers are allowed a bend of 10 millimeters per 10 centimeters of length. Class II cucumbers can bend twice as much.

Cucumbers must also be fresh in appearance, firm, clean and practically free of any visible foreign matter or pests, free of bitter taste and of any foreign smell.

The compromise decision has also been due to the rising prices of food, which has made it an increasingly difficult proposition that food be thrown away just because it doesn't look pretty.

"This marks a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot," said Mariann Fischer Boel, European commissioner for agriculture, who argued that regulations were better left to market operators.

"In these days of high food prices and general economic difficulties, consumers should be able to choose from the widest range of products possible. It makes no sense to throw perfectly good products away, just because they are the 'wrong' shape," Fischer Boel added.

The changes would, however, be effective only from July next year, when the standards on the 26 products disappear from the rule book.

Some 16 members of the 27-member EU  - including Greece, France, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and Poland - tried to block the changes at a meeting of the Agricultural Management Committee.

Many also raised apprehensions that any relaxation of regulations would result in the creation of separate standards by individual states.

While sceptics in the European Union may still oppose the changes, critics of Europe's ''intrusive legislation would now welcome the move as the most welcome change in EU's stance.