It's one of these murky cases where one can easily get dragged into the detail, and to be honest I don't have time to sort through the claims - I do encourage you (or your friends who are possibly more interested than you are!) to contact Rebecca Taylor directly, or the European Commission office in London who are supposed to deal with this sort of query (or the Europe Direct phone line).

What I do spot is that the seeds people have significantly changed their narrative in the last few days. Where originally it was scare stories about evil eurocrats scheming to punish innocent gardeners, now they have switched to a version where their heroic lobbying has caused some changes, but more action is needed to counter the evil agribusiness industry lobbyists. I am certain that the second narrative is more honest than the first, but the first was so exaggerated (or, to use a more brutal word, untrue) that I'm not going to exert myself on their behalf.

I saw that on the inestimable Bruno Waterfield's twitter this morning. Still haven't found any actual link to an actual story, other than a Spanish legislative proposal, In any case if the aim is to prevent food poisoning, what is the big deal?