European Commission (EC)

European Union · Binding — legally enforceable maximum levels · Established 1958 · Authored by Karen Pendergrass, Institute for Contaminant Standards · food.ec.europa.eu

Quick read

The European Commission sets the legally binding maximum levels for heavy metals in food across the European Union, now consolidated in Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915. Unlike EFSA’s advisory guidance, these are enforceable concentration limits (mg/kg in a specified food): product exceeding them cannot lawfully be placed on the EU market. The Commission sets the limits; EFSA provides the underlying science.

Mandate & scope

The European Commission holds the legislative power to set binding food-contaminant limits for the EU, exercised on the scientific basis of EFSA opinions and through comitology with the Member States. Its maximum levels for lead, cadmium, mercury, inorganic arsenic, and tin are now consolidated in Regulation (EU) 2023/915, which in 2023 replaced the earlier framework Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 and its amendments (several of which the Index still tracks as superseded). The Commission progressively tightens these limits — successive 2021 amendments lowered lead and cadmium levels for cereals and infant foods — under an ALARA (“as low as reasonably achievable”) policy. For nickel it moved within 2024 from a monitoring recommendation (2024/907) to binding maximum levels (Regulation (EU) 2024/1987). These limits are the enforceable floor in the EU; product above them is non-compliant.

Positions across metals

Where it diverges

The Commission’s maximum levels are binding concentration limits in specific foods and are not comparable with EFSA’s or JECFA’s intake-based guidance — though they and FDA’s action levels both express concentrations (mg/kg vs ppb) and can be compared food-by-food where the matrices match. The EU’s infant-food lead limits are among the tightest in force globally; where they sit below US FDA action levels for comparable categories, the gap reflects the EU’s more precautionary, binding posture rather than a different toxicological basis.

Lead

Cadmium

Inorganic arsenic

Total arsenic

No other tracked body sets a position for total arsenic; EC is the only one in the index.

Total mercury

No other tracked body sets a position for total mercury; EC is the only one in the index.

Methylmercury

Nickel

Tin

Update log

Key documents

References

Positions, the update log, and key documents above are generated from the per-instrument regulation pages this body issues, via tools/build-regulator-pages.mjs. The wiki reports what EC has published; it does not endorse it. See HMTc separation policy for why reporting regulatory values is kept architecturally separate from certification threshold-setting.