Brussels debunks Boris Johnson’s fishy EU complaint

Vytenis Andriukaitis advises front-runner to become the next British PM to ‘keep a cool head.’

Europe’s food safety commissioner told Boris Johnson on Thursday that his complaint about supposedly burdensome EU fish export rules was in fact due to British restrictions.

The front-runner to become the U.K.’s next prime minister complained during the final hustings of the Conservative party’s leadership contest on Wednesday that food safety rules from “Brussels bureaucrats” were hurting trade in kippers.

Holding a plastic-wrapped kipper that had come from a fish smoker on the Isle of Man, Johnson said: “After decades of sending them through the post like this, he has had his costs massively increased by Brussels bureaucrats who are insisting that each kipper must be accompanied by a plastic ice pillow.”

“Pointless, expensive, environmentally damaging,” he said, adding that after Brexit, the U.K. will “be able to take back control of our regulatory framework and end this damaging regulatory overkill.”

But Vytenis Andriukaitis, the EU’s food safety commissioner, wrote to Johnson on Twitter today to point out that the Isle of Man, a British overseas dependency, is not a member of the EU and therefore is not bound to the bloc’s food safety regulations. He also noted that such food packaging rules would fall under the U.K.’s competency.

“A fish rots from the head down. As potential future prime minister you need to keep a cool head. So after all, Boris, that ice pillow may turn out to be not so ‘pointless,”’ Andriukaitis said on Twitter, with the hashtag #friendlyadvice.

A European Commission spokesperson added that while the EU has certain rules for food hygiene, these rules do not cover how companies must comply with them, such as for packaging.

“It means that the case described by Mr. Johnson falls outside the scope of EU legislation and is purely the U.K. national competence,” the spokesperson said.