Dear President Weber,
 

Ahead of the EU parliament plenary debate on the 7th of October, you told the press that "people are not stupid." We agree. That is precisely why we are asking the EPP not to spend further political capital on what to call a veggie burger.

 

We write on behalf of the NoConfusion coalition, comprising more than 600 companies, retailers, investors, and consumer and environmental organisations from 22 EU countries.

 

On 17 June, the European Parliament adopted the trilogue agreement on the targeted CMO revision. After a process that collapsed once in December and was reopened under the Cyprus presidency, Parliament reserved 31 animal-species and meat-cut terms for products of animal origin, while leaving format names such as "burger", "sausage" and "nuggets" available to plant-based producers. That compromise was hard-won, and it settled the question.

 

We understand it may not stay settled. The rapporteur who led this file, Céline Imart, has been clear that she regards the exclusion of "burger", "sausage" and "nuggets" as unfinished business and intends to seek their inclusion at the next available opportunity, whether by reopening this file or through the broader CMO reform. 

 

Should this be tabled, it would be the third time in six years, and the second time in this mandate alone, that Parliament would vote specifically on banning the words "burger" and "sausage". We see no serious mandate for this from farmers or from consumers, and we struggle to understand why the institution would relitigate a question it has just closed.

 

At a moment when Europe faces war on its borders, energy insecurity, strained transatlantic relations, a cost of living crisis and an openly acknowledged competitiveness gap with the United States and China, another round on plant-based naming is hard to defend to citizens. The political capital it consumes is political energy not spent on strategic autonomy, food security and affordability . We therefore ask you, as President of the EPP:

 

• to state clearly that the EPP will not support extending reserved-term restrictions to "burger", "sausage", "nuggets" or other format-based, non-species-specific descriptors, in this or any near-term revision of the CMO; and

• to advise EPP negotiators and members to resist any reopening of the question, and to redirect that effort towards the competitiveness, simplification and food-sovereignty agenda your group and the Commission have championed.

 

The case for closing this file for good rests on more than the absence of a mandate.

 

It is opposed, consistently and at scale.
Over 340,000 citizens have signed petitions against naming restrictions, and the open letter behind this coalition is backed by more than 600 organisations across 22 countries: one of the largest cross-sectoral mobilisations of this parliamentary term on a single labelling question. Each fresh attempt to reopen the file has to contend with that opposition again.

 

It carries a real and measurable cost, at the worst possible time.
Germany's Federal Association for Alternative Protein Sources (BALPro) puts the cost of the restrictions already adopted at around €250 million for the German industry alone, in repackaging, rebranding and lost sales, multiplying that across all 27 member states. Extending the list to "burger" and "sausage" would aggravate this. For households still feeling a prolonged cost-of-living squeeze, plant-based proteins are among the more affordable protein sources on the shelf, and these costs land, eventually, on the shelf price. Mandating new terminology, re-translating it across 24 official languages, and re-auditing labels and marketing across the single market is exactly the kind of avoidable burden your simplification agenda is meant to remove.

 

It works against Europe's food sovereignty.

Resilient domestic protein supply chains, including the legumes, pulses and crops that feed into the plant based sector, are something naming rules do nothing to strengthen. They only make it harder for EU producers to compete with imported products and global markets that face no such constraint, weakening rather than reinforcing European food sovereignty.

 

A strategic opportunity Europe cannot afford to undermine.
Independent analysis by Systemiq finds that, with supportive policy and modest public investment, alternative proteins could add €111 billion a year in gross value added to the EU economy by 2040, support more than 400,000 jobs, and build a €60 billion export market, positioning Europe as a global biomanufacturing hub. Systemiq conditions that outcome on a more predictable, harmonised and transparent regulatory framework. Recurring disputes over basic terminology are the opposite of predictable, and they pull investment toward jurisdictions that offer founders more certainty.

 

Europe's farmers, food businesses, investors and consumers need regulatory stability, affordable food, and institutions focused on real competitiveness. As you put it: people are not stupid. They can tell a veggie sausage from a pork one, and they can tell when political time is being spent on the wrong problem.

 

We ask the EPP, under your leadership, to ensure this question is not brought back again. We remain available to discuss it at your convenience.

 

Yours sincerely,
On behalf of the NoConfusion coalition