The Brief: Veni, vidi, veggie

It's 2025, the global order is breaking down and the EU is struggling to hold its place on the world stage. But thank goodness we have farming lobbies leading the good fight for meaty food names.

If you thought that hatchet had been buried, think again: a new initiative will soon be brought to the Commission by farming ministers of at least nine EU countries – including Spain and France, staunch conservatives when it comes to matters of the plate. Italy and Slovakia are also joining the cause, the latter recently having approved the sale of bear burgers.

Drawing on a long-standing EU law which stipulates that “milk” or “cheese” can only be used for dairy products, the ministers now assert that the same protection should apply to meat products.

“It is essential that foods which imitate, mimic or substitute foods of animal origin do not mislead the consumer by their labelling as to their true nature,” reads a note seen by Euractiv.

For all those who've been caught out by a char-grilled "sausage" at a neighbour's BBQ, or felt conned by some "meatballs" it transpired were not ground from the flesh of a cow, this one's for you. I lose count of how many times I've been short-changed by cauliflower steaks. Salvation is nigh.

"Words matter!" insists the farming federation driving this noble mission. As someone who is paid to be a pedant about this, I gladly agree.

But the power of words is not the letters on the page, rather the meaning they convey. I'll spare you the theory of signs, signifiers and semiology. Suffice to say that we can try all we like to set in stone certain words for specific occasions, but no amount of legal ringfencing will stop the wheel of culinary advance.

Look what happened to dairy labels: marketing teams had no end of fun cooking up permissible alternatives. "Not milk," cartons now read, which I'd argue only serves to highlight issues related to actual milk as consumers are prompted to question not only the cost benefits of a substitute liquid, but also the health and environmental differences. Such comparisons often see the traditional product come off worse.

When is a sausage not a sausage? – At least nine countries is preparing to reignite the row over plant-based food labelling at next week’s Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Luxembourg.

How Parliament funds NGOs – Pressure is mounting to launch a permanent committee to investigate the funding of NGOs. "That the executive branch of the European Union is paying lobbyists to lobby the legislative pillar of the European Union is unacceptable," said EPP Chairman Manfred Weber.

Total ban on Russian natural gas – The Commission has tabled a bill that would phase out the large volumes of Russian gas still flowing into the EU until the end of 2027. "We have decided to close the tap on Russian gas," EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said in Strasbourg.

What caused the blackout? – An initial report into the April incident has not identified a single cause. But criticism was aimed at the Spanish national grid operator.

Denmark open to bigger EU budget – Copenhagen will not “stand in a corner” with frugal EU countries on other controversial issues such as common debt during its forthcoming Council presidency, Denmark’s EU envoy said.

Today's issue of The Brief was brought to you by Orlando Whitehead.