EU marketing standards are standard fodder for one of the most popular jibes about EU over-regulation, in which European Commission bureaucrats are portrayed as zealous in setting permitted sizes, lengths and 'bendiness' for farm produce.

But now the Commission wants to cut the red tape and get rid of what it calls 'unnecessary marketing standards'.

'Next Wednesday is a new dawn for the bendy cucumber and the amusingly shaped carrot,' Commission agriculture spokesman Michael Mann said.

'Member states will vote on our proposal to get rid of rules preventing the sale of strangely shaped fruits and vegetables,' he said. 'In these days of high food prices, it makes no sense to throw food away just because it doesn't look right.'

EU diplomats have said the need for marketing standards has diminished because supermarkets have largely imposed their own standards. However, some major producers, like France, Italy and Spain, are uneasy about the proposed changes.

If the 27 national EU experts agree, the rules defining minimum shapes and sizes would be repealed for 26 fruits and vegetables. They include aubergines and apricots, cherries, garlic, leeks, peas, spinach and watermelons.

Ten standards will remain, including those for apples, citrus fruit, peaches, pears and tomatoes. The 10 categories account for three-quarters of EU cross-border fruit and vegetable trade.

'Even for these (10) you will still be allowed to sell them if they don't meet the standards,' Mann said.

EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel is also keen to do something about preventing 'non-standard' farm produce like pockmarked carrots, dirty leeks and unripe apples from being thrown away, and sold to consumers instead.

A lot of produce taken from the fields does not always meet the EU's baseline sale and marketing criteria - next week's vote refers to a set of additional product-specific rules - so it does not get publicly offered to consumers.

That applies in particular to perishable produce like fruit and vegetables, which may not be sold to consumers if it has gone off or is rotten, blemished, dirty, damaged by pests, underdeveloped or, in the case of fruit, not ripe enough.

While the Commission would prefer to see more of this kind of produce used in industrial processing, to make items such as jam or preserves, much of it gets destroyed, officials say. -- REUTERS