Consumer Information Act

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Basic data
Title: Law to improve health-related consumer information
Short title: Consumer Information Act
Abbreviation: VIG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Legal matter: Special administrative law , food law
References : 2125-46
Original version from: November 5, 2007
( BGBl. I p. 2558 )
Entry into force on: May 1, 2008
New announcement from: October 17, 2012
( BGBl. I p. 2166 , ber.p. 2725 )
Last change by: Art. 1 G of March 15, 2012
( BGBl. I p. 476 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		September 1, 2012
(Art. 4 G of March 15, 2012)
GESTA : F022
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The German law for the improvement of health-related consumer information , or Consumer Information Law for short, is intended to strengthen and decisively improve consumer rights. It mainly came into force on May 1, 2008, at the same time as the Consumer Information Fee Ordinance (VIGGebV), which includes the fees for inquiries to federal agencies.

Important content

The Consumer Information Act applies to products within the meaning of the Food and Feed Code ("LFGB" for short) and to consumer products within the meaning of the Product Safety Act ("ProdSG" for short) (Section 1 VIG). Products are food, including food additives, animal feed, cosmetic products and consumer goods ( Section 2, Paragraph 1 LFGB). Consumer products are new, used or remanufactured products that are intended for consumers or that could be used by consumers under conditions that can be reasonably foreseen, even if they are not intended for them ( Section 2 No. 26 ProdSG). Products that are made available to the consumer as part of a service are also considered consumer products (Section 2 No. 26 ProdSG).

All consumers should have the right to information about certain data and products that are available to the authorities. For their part, the authorities should have the right to actively provide information about certain facts. In the future, it should be possible to ask the authorities what information is available about certain products, for example about their properties or manufacturing conditions, whether they contain allergens , or what other test results are available about them. Authorities, in turn, should be able to pass on information about products for which, for example, limit values ​​have been significantly exceeded or for which it is scientifically controversial as to the concentration at which a certain risk exists. Even in the event of a violation of consumer protection regulations and incidents during food monitoring, the authorities should be allowed to disclose the names of the companies, which was previously not possible in Germany.

In one of the first court decisions on the Consumer Information Act, the Stuttgart Administrative Court made some clarifications: The right to information does not require that the violation of food and feed regulations relates to health. The law also extends to violations that were committed before it came into force, but whose penalties were only concluded afterwards. The interest of the consumer in knowing the product concerned and of the producer can outweigh the risk of possible sales losses in the event of serious violations. Matters relevant to criminal law are not trade secrets.

Public warnings and product recalls have so far been published in the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed of the European Commission. The new Consumer Information Act stipulates that in the future authorities will be able to publicly disclose the names of manufacturers even if the administrative procedure has not yet been completed, e.g. the counter- sample has not yet been examined and assessed in a second laboratory. As a result, consumers can be informed more quickly on the one hand, and the risk of incorrect information increases on the other. In the past, examples of false reports caused by the authorities were the well-known cases of “ Birkel ” and “ Coppenrath & Wiese ”.

The scope of the law does not include all everyday products, but is limited to products with which consumers come into direct contact. Technical products and services in the areas of old-age provision, energy supply, telecommunications or transport are not included. In a position paper, the SPD parliamentary group has spoken out in favor of extending the law to all products and services.

History of origin

Under the red-green federal government (1998–2005), the draft law presented by Consumer Protection Minister Renate Künast ( Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen ) failed several times due to opposition from the CDU- dominated Federal Council, despite several attempts . At the beginning of the 16th legislative period of the German Bundestag , however, the intention was agreed in the coalition agreement of the grand coalition to pass such a law. Accordingly, the responsible Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection , headed by Horst Seehofer at the time, initiated the procedure again. On June 29, 2006, the Bundestag passed a Consumer Information Act (VIG), which the Bundesrat approved at its meeting on September 22, 2006.

On December 8, 2006, Federal President Horst Köhler refused to issue it due to constitutional concerns. In the letter of the same wording from the Federal President to the Bundestag, the Federal Government and the Bundesrat of December 8, 2006, it says: “The obligation of the municipal authorities to examine and approve applications under the Consumer Information Act for the disclosure of information is a delegation of tasks of Art. 84.1 sentence 7 GG . In this I see a clear violation of the negative competency provision of Article 84.1 sentence 7 of the Basic Law, which has been in force since September 1, 2006 , which prevents me from drafting the law. [...] In my opinion, the justified concerns of consumer protection can be taken into account very quickly by the renewed adoption of the law without the constitutionally inadmissible assignment of tasks ”.

This decision of the Federal President sparked a great deal of public controversy about the tasks, position and examination competence of the Federal President. The Federal President's position also found support in the legal discussion.

On July 5, 2007 the Consumer Information Act was passed by the Bundestag against the votes of the parliamentary groups Die Linke , Bündnis90 / Die Grünen and FDP . The Federal President's objections were taken into account by the following formulation: The law "only applies in the case of a municipality or a municipality association if the municipality or the municipality association has been assigned the tasks under this law by state law." September 2007 approved.

Federal states

After the adoption of the Consumer Information Act in the federal government, many see the federal states on the train. The reason for this is that, according to Article 83 of the Basic Law, the states implement federal laws as a separate matter and thus the state authorities are often obliged to provide information.

The federal states have also issued regulations for implementing the VIG. These regulate, for example, the authority's responsibilities or the question of costs in the context of delegating tasks to the municipalities in order to maintain the principle of connectivity.

Evaluation

As planned when it was passed, the Federal Government subjected the law to an evaluation two years after it came into force and published a report on the results in May 2010.

"Pot Secret"

In the first three months alone, over 20,000 VIG inquiries about the inspection reports of individual food companies were made via the consumer platform "Topf Secret", which has been operated by the organizations FragDenStaat.de and foodwatch since January 2019. This corresponds to more inquiries than have been made since the law came into existence. While the initiators of the platform criticize the secrecy of hygiene information, the hotel and restaurant association DEHOGA called the project a "hygiene pranger".

criticism

The law, passed in July 2007, met with strong criticism from consumer associations shortly after it came into force. Foodwatch criticized the lack of obligation to provide unsolicited information to the authorities and companies as well as the lack of transparency of the results of the tax-funded food controls. Criticism also came from the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Peter Schaar , who objected to the missing upper limit in the cost regulation ( § 1 sentence 2 VIGGebV).

The basic duration of the procedure of around 8 weeks from the receipt of the application to the release of the information due to the hearing of the company, administrative procedures , validity of the decision, etc. make quick inquiries almost impossible, according to critics. The editors of the program “Report” (Mainz) criticized the fact that even after five months they had not yet succeeded in obtaining any information about cases of so-called “rotten meat”, citing the Consumer Protection Act. However, it is possible to obtain information about certain businesses, such as a restaurant or supermarket.

For its part, the food industry criticizes the actions of the consumer protection organizations . The inquiries from the authorities are primarily characterized by requests from individual environmental and consumer associations, which put considerable strain on the human resources of the authorities concerned and the companies to be heard. With research or all-round requests without specifying a specific issue, they would want to get a general overview of the knowledge available to the authorities in order to then use this information for campaigns.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ VG Stuttgart, decision of January 21, 2009, Az. 4 K 4605/08 and 4 K 4615/08.
  2. ↑ Transparency International Germany e. V. Rundbrief 37, 2/2007 pdf ( Memento of the original dated September 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.transparency.de
  3. ↑ BR-printed matter 584/06 of 8 December 2006
  4. ^ Incident President . In: Der Spiegel . No. 51 , 2006, p. 29 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Schoch DVBl. 2007, 261, 265.
  6. ↑ Bundestag printed paper 17/1800 (PDF; 1.0 MB)
  7. ↑ Hanna Gersmann , Susanne Plecher: Regular pub clean? How authorities refuse hygiene information. In: Free Press. Retrieved April 6, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Topf Secret: Gastro lobby deceives the public and authorities - and the city of Cologne falls for it (update). In: FragDenStaat.de. Retrieved April 6, 2019 .
  9. ^ Coalition Prevents Consumer Rights foodwatch, July 5, 2007
  10. ^ Jan Eisner: Bundestag approved consumer information law. foodwatch speaks of »packaging fraud« , Junge Welt , July 7, 2007
  11. ↑ Report: Why Seehofer's Law fails. Report from September 29, 2008 at swr.de.
  12. ↑ Press release of the Federation for Food Law and Food Science e. V. (BLL) [1]

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