Background to the complaint

1. The legislative framework for sustainable food systems (FSFS) was an initiative under the ‘Farm to Fork’ Strategy. Its goal was to accelerate and make the transition to sustainable food systems easier. More specifically, the FSFS would set out rules on sustainability labelling of food products, and minimum criteria for sustainable public procurement of food, as well as governance and monitoring arrangements.[1]

2. The FSFS proposal was to be adopted by the European Commission by the end of 2023. Between 2020 and 2023, the Commission undertook preparatory steps, such as an Inception Impact Assessment in 2021[2] and a public consultation in 2022.[3]

3. In 2022 and 2023, the complainant, a Polish civil society organisation, together with other organisations, addressed open letters to the Commission expressing concerns regarding the delay in the adoption of the FSFS proposal and its absence in the Commission’s work programme for 2024.[4]

4. The Commission replied to the complainant, but the complainant considered that its replies were evasive and did not provide clear information about the status of the initiative at issue. Dissatisfied with the Commission’s replies, the complainant turned to the Ombudsman on 29 July 2025.

The inquiry

5. The Ombudsman opened an inquiry into how the Commission informed the public about the status of the FSFS proposal, including the delay in adopting it.

6. The Ombudsman also inquired into how the Commission informs the public when it suspends or discontinues the work on legislative initiatives that have been previously announced, including in relation to which the Commission has already conducted public consultations. 

7. In the context of the inquiry, the Ombudsman obtained the Commission’s written reply[5] and her inquiry team met with the Commission’s representatives.[6]

8. The Ombudsman also obtained the complainant’s comments on both the Commission’s reply and the meeting report.

Arguments presented to the Ombudsman

9. The complainant argued that the Commission failed to inform the public about the reasons for the delay in adopting the FSFS proposal and to provide an updated timeframe. For the complainant, as the Commission had already collected feedback from stakeholders on the initiative and subsequently held a public consultation, it should provide the public concrete information about the status of the initiative and its plans in relation to it.

10. The complainant further argued that the failure to inform the public on the status of the FSFS initiative was in breach of the Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making, which calls for the Commission to ensure the transparency of legislative procedures,[7] as well as the principle of protecting legitimate expectations.

11. The Commission said, in its written replies to the complainant and the Ombudsman, that it reassessed its political priorities due to the economic disruptions caused by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the farmers’ protests, and the broader stakeholder concerns about EU agriculture. It pointed out that it made other proposals concerning sustainable food systems, such as food waste reduction targets to be achieved by 2030. It furthermore pointed to its “Vision for Agriculture and Food”, which aims to balance sustainability and the socio-economic needs of the agricultural sector. Moreover, it stressed that there is already a strict legal framework for feed and food produced with veterinary products that may result in antimicrobial resistance, and that the current EU rules on food labelling ensure a high level of protection of consumer health.

12. During the meeting with the Ombudsman inquiry team, the Commission representatives clarified that a change of direction in its political priorities was made public in the Commission President’s 2023 ‘State of the Union’ address to the European Parliament, in which she announced a Strategic Dialogue on the Future of Agriculture and Food. The Strategic Dialogue culminated in the report ‘A shared prospect for farming and food in Europe’.[8] Building on this report, the Commission presented a ‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’ in February 2025.[9] As neither the report nor the Vision mentioned the FSFS or the ‘Farm to Fork’ Strategy, the Commission considered that it had been clear to stakeholders that both the FSFS and the ‘Farm to Fork’ Strategy had been discontinued. Thus, the Commission confirmed that work on the FSFS had been discontinued.

13. In addition, during the meeting the Commission representatives clarified the terminology regarding the status of initiatives. The term ‘withdrawal’ is applied to legislative proposals already adopted by the Commission and submitted to the European Parliament and the Council as the co-legislators. The term ‘abandoned’ is used for initiatives that have not yet been adopted as legislative proposals. The Commission said that the status of all initiatives can be consulted on the Commission’s ‘Have your Say’ portal.[10]

14. Following the present complaint, the Commission said it had examined the information available on the portal and had identified some inaccuracies and out-of-date information regarding several initiatives. Therefore, it undertook steps to introduce updates and implement systemic improvements to ensure that stakeholders obtain clear information about the status of specific initiatives, including those that the Commission decided to discontinue (‘abandon’, according to the Commission’s terminology).

15. In response, the complainant considered that the announcement of a new framework, without an explicit reference to the previous initiative, did not meet this requirement. Furthermore, the complainant contended that abandoning a legislative initiative without being required to actively inform the public about it is a breach of the principle of transparency.

The Ombudsman's assessment

16. The Commission has committed itself in its Better Regulation rules to ensure, among other things, a transparent law-making process,[11] as required by the Treaties[12] and the case law of the EU Courts.[13]

17. While the Inter-institutional Agreement on Better Law-Making, as well as the case law,[14] oblige the Commission to justify only a withdrawal of the legislative proposal from an ongoing legislative process, that is, after this proposal has been formally adopted and submitted to the co-legislators,[15] the Ombudsman considers that, as a matter of good administration, the Commission must also inform the public when it abandons a legislative initiative, that is, a text that did not finally become a formal legislative proposal.

18. In that regard, the Ombudsman notes that the Court of Justice of the EU has found that the Commission’s decision to abandon a legislative initiative can be as impactful as its decision to adopt one: “the Commission’s decision to abandon, following an impact assessment, the legislative initiative envisaged puts a definitive end to the planned legislative action, which may not be resumed unless that institution withdraws that decision”.[16] In the Ombudsman’s view, it follows from this that the Commission is subject to the highest standard of legislative transparency during the process of preparing legislative initiatives, regardless of whether this process will culminate in the adoption of a legislative proposal.

19. As regards this case, the Ombudsman considers that it was not evident, based on the information provided by the Commission before this inquiry, that the FSFS initiative had been discontinued. That said, the Ombudsman welcomes that the Commission clarified this issue during the inquiry, providing clear reasoning for its decision to abandon the initiative. The Ombudsman also welcomes that the Commission has now decided to update the information on all its policy initiatives on its website. The Ombudsman trusts that the Commission will keep this information up-to-date in line with the highest standards of legislative transparency.

Conclusion

Based on the inquiry, the Ombudsman closes this case with the following conclusion:

As the Commission has clarified the status of the legislative initiative at issue and has committed to updating information on all its policy initiatives available on its website, no further inquiries into this complaint are justified.

The complainant and the Commission will be informed of this decision.

Teresa Anjinho
European Ombudsman

Strasbourg, 30/06/2026

 

[1] European Parliament, Sustainable EU Food System: Legislative Train Schedule,  https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/carriage/sustainable-eu-food-system/report?sid=10201.

[2] European Commission, Inception impact assessment: Sustainable food system framework initiative, https://food.ec.europa.eu/document/download/efad46c1-0813-443f-8670-83e278206084_en?filename=f2f_legis_iia_fsfs_5902055.pdf.

[3] European Commission, Sustainable food system – setting up an EU framework: Public consultation, https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13174-Sustainable-food-system-setting-up-an-EU-framework/public-consultation_en.

[4] European Commission’s Work Programme 2024, https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/strategy-documents/commission-work-programme/commission-work-programme-2024_en. 

[5] https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/doc/correspondence/228546

[6] https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/doc/correspondence/228547

[7] Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32016Q0512(01).

[8] European Commission, ‘Strategic Dialogue on the future of EU agriculture’, https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/cap-overview/committees-and-expert-groups/strategic-dialogue-future-eu-agriculture_en.

[9] European Commission, ‘A Vision for Agriculture and Food’, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025DC0075.

[10] European Commission, ‘Have your say – initiatives’, https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives_en.

[11] European Commission, Better Regulation Guidelines, November 2021, https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-making-process/better-regulation/better-regulation-guidelines-and-toolbox_en.

[12] Article 15 TFEU.

[13] See an overview in the Ombudsman’s Decision on how the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission handle requests for public access to legislative documents (OI/4/2023/MIK), https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/196680.

[14] Court of Justice, Judgment of 14 April 2015, Council v Commission, C-409/13, paragraph 76, https://juris.curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=163659&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=186316.

[15] Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making (footnote 7 above). See points 3, 9, and 38.

[16] Court of Justice, Judgment of 4 September 2018, ClientEarth v Commission, C‑57/16 P, paragraph 87, https://juris.curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=205322&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=8961911.