Cheesy? How raw milk cheese made its way through the EU's legislative procedure like the village of indomitable Gauls (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1,0, University of Kent (Brussels School of International Studies), course: EU Politics and Governance class, language: English, abstract: This essay will examine the policy making process in the European Union (EU) concerning food safety in the case of raw milk cheese production. Food safety has been a key concern of the EU after several food scandals at the end of the 90¿s such as the mad cow disease or more recently the usage of falsely labeled horse meat. As a reaction to that, the focus shifted from the creation of a common food market to food safety.

The case of raw milk cheese is in so far an interesting one because it symbolizes a dilemma for the EU. Firstly, because the milk that is used for the production is untreated. Untreated milk can be the cause of several diseases, yet this kind of cheese is deeply rooted in the culture of especially southern European cuisine. Secondly, the common market aims to standardized products with the aim to create an even bigger, more prosperous market and integrated market. However, the standardization takes place at the expense of product variety and the livelihood of small dairy farmers. The challenging task for the union is to find a compromise between these driving factors.