Top EU Court Lets Denmark
Decide Food Cancer Risk

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's highest court ruled on Thursday that Denmark may set stricter limits on cancer-causing substances in food than the European Commission allows.

The European Union passed a law in 1995 setting community-wide limits on food additives. At the time Denmark opposed the law, arguing it failed to meet health requirements for nitrites, nitrates and sulphites.

Denmark has tougher limits on nitrites and nitrates, which the court said cause cancer, and on sulphites, which can cause lesions in the digestive tract and severe allergic reactions in asthmatics, than the European Union as a whole.

The chemicals are widely used as preservatives in food and drinks like wine, snack bars and meat products.

Four years later the European Commission said that Denmark could not retain its own, tougher standards but would have to loosen up food additive limits.

The European Court of Justice overturned the Commission decision. The court brushed aside a rule which says a country must have new scientific evidence.

Given the "uncertainty inherent in assessing public health risks, divergent assessments of those risks can legitimately be made," the court said in a statement.

"A member state which asks to maintain derogating national provisions may argue that its assessment of the risk to public health is different from that made by the Community legislature," it said.

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