Where did all this come from?

You have to go back a long way, to 1991 in fact. With 40 legal cases stacked up against Germany for creating 'barriers to trade' the EC Commission decided to examine the supplements market. At that time, as now, there was no pan-European legislation governing dietary supplements - all such products were subject to the laws of the individual European countries.

But Europe exists to regulate; it has no other purpose - so the EU Commission decided instruct Basil Matheoudakis to create pan-European (harmonising) legislation because it was under severe pressure to do so from the following powerful sources:

From the European vitamin industry (excluding the UK), which complained about barriers to trade.
From the European Consumers Association umbrella group, BEUC, on the grounds of 'consumer protection'.
From the French doctors and pharmacists lobby, who want to maintain their monopoly.
From the protectionist governments of France, Germany, Greece and Spain, who opposed what they believed was a high influx of higher-range British and American products onto their home markets.

Their first attempt at regulation was thrown out in 1992 - so they tried again in 1996. The first question they had to answer was "Are dietary supplements foods or medicines?"

At that time there were just 12 member States - now there are 27. Also at that time, the UK was the only country which voted for dietary supplements to remain classed as FOOD supplements. So the battle commenced.

After many twists and turns, the Food Supplements Directive was passed into European law on 12th July 2002. But even today, we still don't know just what nutrients and nutrient sources will be allowed - and we still don't know what dose levels will be set. It's a bizarre situation - but that's what we are fighting.

EU may well end up delivering a harmonizing Directive - but at what cost to consumers?