Current:Home > InvestYes, France is part of the European Union’s heart and soul. Just don’t touch its Camembert cheese -InvestTomorrow
Yes, France is part of the European Union’s heart and soul. Just don’t touch its Camembert cheese
View
Date:2025-04-13 13:05:33
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has long known that the way to France’s heart is through its stomach. So, don’t touch the Camembert — never, ever.
On Wednesday, legislators at the European Parliament will vote to make sure it doesn’t happen.
In one of the many legal proposals on streamlining and optimizing waste management throughout the 27-nation bloc, some French cheese producers sniffed out something and turned it into a culinary stink.
They claimed that the proposal would make it illegal for Camembert to be cradled into the wooden packaging for its final weeks of ripening and, eventually, sale. The round box is as essentially Camembert as its onctuous texture and pungent smell.
Suddenly, there was a frenzied flutter that something fundamentally French would fall foul of the Brussels bureaucrats — derisively known by many as Eurocrats — who are all too often blamed for flaws real and false.
“It is a matter of common sense. Don’t touch our Camemberts!” said Jean-Paul Garraud, a member of the European Parliament for France’s far right Rassemblement National.
If forced into something easier to recycle like plastic, the perfect breathing of the cheese through wood might otherwise get sweaty and flabby. Wood, though, is very hard to recycle sustainably, so the EU plans to move it out of food packaging as much as possible.
Even Gen. Charles de Gaulle, French World War II hero and later president of the nation, knew all about the cheese issue. “How do you want to run a country that has 246 kinds of cheese,” he was quoted as complaining.
The center-right European People’s Party, the biggest group in the European Parliament with a traditional farming electorate and penchant for heritage protection, came to the defense of the wooden boxes for Camembert and other cheeses.
“Our French cheeses are loved all over the world. But who can imagine a Camembert or a Mont d’Or without its wooden strapping? Packaging them in plastic would be a gustatory and environmental aberration,” said French MEP Laurence Sailliet.
“Europe must know how to protect the environment, but never to the detriment of the specific characteristics of its member states,” she added.
And food is one of the touchiest characteristics for sure.
The British used anti-EU food foment to the extreme in the years leading up to Brexit, with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, then still a Brussels journalist, leading the tabloid assault with stories that the EU would insist that bananas would have to be straight and eliminate beloved British biscuits.
It helped turn the United Kingdom against the EU, and voters decided in a referendum to leave.
France is very far from that stage, but Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said Tuesday the EU would make sure that the raw-milk specialized non-industrial Camemberts — those that have a controlled designation of origin — will be exempt from any regulation.
The vote on Wednesday will include such an exemption.
“Indeed, in the EU, certain food packaging made of wood, textiles, ceramics are placed on the market in very small quantities, and many of them protected by the food quality legislation,” Sinkevicius said. “Such packaging may have difficulties to be recycled at scale and is open for specific exemptions.”
veryGood! (51)
Related
- What to know about Tuesday’s US House primaries to replace Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz
- Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai urges world to confront Taliban’s ‘gender apartheid’ against women
- With George Santos out of Congress, special election to fill his seat is set for February
- Teen Mom's Kailyn Lowry Shows Off Evolution of Her Baby Bump While Pregnant With Twins
- Questlove charts 50 years of SNL musical hits (and misses)
- Treat Yo Elf: 60 Self-Care Gifts to Help You Get Through the Holidays & Beyond
- Peruvian constitutional court orders release of former President Alberto Fujimori
- Memorials to victims of Maine’s deadliest mass shootings to be displayed at museum
- 2 killed, 3 injured in shooting at makeshift club in Houston
- Judge again orders arrest of owner of former firearms training center in Vermont
Ranking
- Juan Soto to be introduced by Mets at Citi Field after striking record $765 million, 15
- Teen and parents indicted after shootout outside Baltimore high school that left 3 wounded
- Mexican gray wolf at California zoo is recovering after leg amputation: 'Huge success story'
- South Dakota Governor proposes tighter spending amid rising inflation
- Jamie Foxx reps say actor was hit in face by a glass at birthday dinner, needed stitches
- State officials review mistaken payments sent by Kentucky tornado relief fund
- UN food agency stops deliveries to millions in Yemen areas controlled by Houthi rebels
- New Orleans marsh fire blamed for highway crashes and foul smell is out after burning for weeks
Recommendation
Nearly half of US teens are online ‘constantly,’ Pew report finds
Judge again orders arrest of owner of former firearms training center in Vermont
New manager Ron Washington brings optimism to LA Angels as Shohei Ohtani rumors swirl
Florida discontinues manatee winter feeding program after seagrass conditions improve
2025 'Doomsday Clock': This is how close we are to self
James Cameron on Ridley Scott's genius, plant-based diets and reissuing 6 of his top films
Frontier Airlines settles lawsuit filed by pilots who claimed bias over pregnancy, breastfeeding
Chrysler recalls 142,000 Ram vehicles: Here's which models are affected