Luis Planas prevails over Alberto Garzón in the 'ice cream war'. The Minister of Agriculture maintains the veto to the Royal Decree of advertising of unhealthy foods and beverages aimed at children, which seeks to limit the ads of products high in fat, sugars and salt to which children are exposed. It was the only major project pending for the remainder of the legislature in the portfolio of the head of Consumption, who had given until this Friday to his partner to unlock the norm.

Both ministries have kept this contest open since the summer of 2022, when Agriculture transferred to Consumer Affairs a report against the project in which it bet on the self-regulation mechanisms of companies and questioned the prohibitions and restrictive measures raised in the text. In addition, he defended the advertising for children of certain sugary foods such as ice cream, for their calcium content, or juices, as they could be considered as part of the recommended daily pieces of fruit.

In February of this year, the war intensified when Planas made a staunch defense of the ice cream sector, under the premise that not all ice cream is the same and making the difference between those purchased in supermarkets and traditional ice cream parlors. Consumption remained in the official recommendations of the World Health Organization, which does consider ice cream as sugary, and refused to remove this food from the royal decree.

Earlier this month, the minister of Unidas Podemos launched an ultimatum to his partners in the socialist area of the coalition and demanded that Planas lift the veto of the norm before March 31, the deadline for the regulatory project to be approved during the current legislature, since, after the unblocking, the text would have to go through Brussels and obtain the endorsement of the Council of State, among other procedures, before being approved by the Council of Ministers.

"Priority" project

Once the deadline has been reached, sources from the department led by Alberto Garzón regret "that the PSOE maintains the veto and prevents the royal decree from going ahead." The minister has redoubled his efforts during this month to try to move forward with a project that he considers "priority", even raising the issue of the veto to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who has supported this regulation within the framework of the National Strategic Plan for the Reduction of Childhood Obesity 2022-2030.

But Garzón's pressure has had no effect. Planas refuses to unblock the rule that proposed to introduce some prohibitions in the advertising of certain unhealthy foods aimed at children and adolescents, such as the appearance of influencers in ads or promotions such as gifts or raffles aimed at supporting this advertising.

A rule that, by the way, during the consultation period received an unfavorable report from the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC), which reminded the ministry "the legal obligation to exhaust the options of self-regulation and co-regulation before limiting commercial communication", urged it to "reinforce the specification of the standard" to guarantee legal certainty to operators, as well as "the justification" by which it is prohibited to advertise certain foods and to review the sanctioning regime that raises fines of up to 600,000 euros.

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