The last stage in the approval of this "trading and use regulation" is the agreement of the Council of Ministers. This agreement is expected to be given during the meeting of Ministers of Agriculture next month. Publication will then follow through official channels.

Because the regulation will only become applicable a year after publication, this means that feeds are expected to have to comply with it per April 2010. As far as is currently understood, feeds which are labelled before April 2010 or put on the market under the current legislation will still be sold after April 2010 until stocks are depleted.

The new legislation will be in the form of a Regulation as opposed to the current set of Directives. This legislation therefore has a "higher" legal status. A Regulation is binding in all its parts and is immediately applicable in every Member State. The European Commission has made this choice deliberately in order to restrict the establishment of supplementary requirements by individual Member States as much as possible. These supplementary requirements are seen as unfair trade barriers. The objective of the Commission is that "if it is approved in one Member State then it is permitted in all Member States".

Once the new trade and use regulation is applicable then the following directives and decisions will lapse.

Once the trade and use regulation has been published then the Product Board Animal Feed will inform you via the Legislation Newsletter. At that point there will also be further consideration of the content of the regulation and the consequences for the companies in the feed sector.