This where we stand right now, it is unclear at this sage who and when the the go ahead to infringe the EU regulations came from but clearly it looks that the  former French Agriculture Secretary has been involved. Regarding the legislation,

Article 7
Fair information practices
1. Food information shall not be misleading ▌, particularly:
(a) in that the description and/or pictorial representation of the food could
mislead the consumers with regard to its nature, identity, properties,
composition, individual ingredients and their quantity in the product,
durability, country of origin or place of provenance, method of manufacture
or production;


below is the previous annex 3


2. MEAT PRODUCTS FROM SPECIAL SLAUGHTER                Particulars
2.1 Meat and meat products derived from                                    ‘Meat from slaughter
animals that have not been stunned                                                    without stunning’
prior to slaughter, i.e. have been
ritually slaughtered

Annexe 3 isn't involved in the horse meat scandal but allows the tracking of fraudsters and accomplices within Govs at least it will give us some leads on the extent of the corruption. Executives in the industry have made clear they had "orders" to infringe the regulation.
Although the enforcable (EU rules until 12 Dec. 2014 - Guidelines for implementing the QUID - Informal guidelines) Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 can be found here : 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:304:0018:01:EN:HTML