In a new report, the EU Court of Auditors say food safety control systems for olive oil are “comprehensive but unevenly applied.”

Given the economic importance of the olive oil sector, the Court of Auditors assessed whether the olive oil control framework as required by EU legislation adequately ensures that products are “genuine, safe, and traceable.” The audit included an assessment of the implementation of olive oil controls in four Member States since 2018—Belgium, Greece, Spain, and Italy—specifically, whether these countries conducted the required checks for authenticity, conformity/contamination, and traceability.

A Strong Olive Oil Control Framework Exists in the EU, with Room for Improvement

The auditors found that olive oil is highly regulated. There is a comprehensive set of rules defining how authenticity checks should be carried out by Member States, including laboratory physico-chemical analyses and organoleptic assessments.

The legal framework for conformity checks is also strong, but some flaws in control systems exist, mostly regarding contaminants rather than pesticides. For example, some contaminants have not been prescribed maximum limits, and there is no minimum number of contaminant checks required at the EU level. Member States, which do not always document their risk analyses or justify their control choices, find very few cases of contaminant levels in olive oil exceeding legal limits. Additionally, checks for both pesticides and contaminants in imported olive oil (from non-EU countries) were either nonexistent or very limited in the Member States visited.

Moreover, traceability checks do not always successfully identify a product’s origin; in a sample of 24 olive oils, the auditors were unable to confirm the labeled origin for four oils, with traceability beyond national borders proving to be a challenge. There are no comprehensive EU rules or guidance on how and when traceability aspects should be checked, allowing Member States to check traceability to different extents.

Some legal requirements set by the EU are not sufficiently clear, such as the conditions for blending oils from different harvest years, or whether blending extra virgin and virgin olive oils to sell as extra virgin is allowed.

Controls are Inconsistently Applied in Member States

Despite the comprehensive regulatory framework for olive oil in the EU, Member States do not always comply with regulations.

The auditors found that some Member States do not carry out the minimum number of checks, or they carry out incomplete laboratory analyses or exclude parts of the market from their risk analyses. The countries assessed did complement EU-required conformity checks with other types of state-level checks, however.

The auditors also found that, in cases of non-compliance, sanctions and penalties are not always effective or dissuasive.

Overall, the auditors believe the European Commission does not have a complete understanding of how olive oil control systems function within Member States.

Recommendations for Improving Olive Oil Control Across EU

The court of auditors offered several recommendations for the European Commission based on its findings:

• Strengthening oversight of Member States’ olive oil control systems by requiring national authorities to provide relevant information, conducting assessment of control systems, and taking action when control systems are insufficient
• Clarifying the rules for blending different olive oils
• Improving guidance on checks for contaminants in olive oil (i.e., risk analyses, decision-making, and frequency) and require imported olive oil to be considered in risk analyses
• Clarifying and providing guidance on what traceability checks should cover and how the results of traceability checks should be reported