After three years of intense investigating EU officials have concluded that there is no evidence to prove that drinking water hydrates anyone.
Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from claiming that water does hydrates, and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the law, which comes into force in the UK next month.
Critics said the EU was defying science and common sense. Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: “This is stupidity writ large.
“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of water and trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true.
“If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project then this is it.”
The Department for Health disputed the new law. A spokesman said: “Of course water hydrates. While we support the EU in preventing false claims about products, we need to exercise common sense as far as possible."
A meeting of 21 scientists in Parma, Italy, concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration and not something that drinking water could subsequently control.
Now the EFSA verdict has been turned into an EU law.
Ukip MEP Paul Nuttall said, “I had to read this four or five times before I believed it. It is a perfect example of what Brussels does best. Spend three years, with 20 separate pieces of correspondence before summoning 21 professors to Parma where they decide with great solemnity that drinking water cannot be sold as a way to combat dehydration.
“Then they make this judgment law and make it clear that if anybody dares sell water claiming that it is effective against dehydration they could get into serious legal bother.
Rules banning bent bananas and curved cucumbers were scrapped in 2008 after causing international ridicule.
We believe this law deserves just as much ridicule.
