MEPs bid to boost food agency powers

Date: 08/03/01

By Laurence Frost

EURO MPs will try to toughen proposals for a new European Food Authority (EFA) in the wake of the crises over BSE and foot-and-mouth disease.

Socialist MEP Phillip Whitehead is drafting the European Parliament's position, which will call for the agency to have a more prominent role in handling food scares.

Under the proposal, the authority would evaluate and publish risks to human health, but would not be formally consulted over measures to reduce them.

"When the Commission is deciding what should be done in a crisis, the public needs to be able to see that the EFA was consulted and gave its recommendations," said Whitehead.

He was speaking after the EU's veterinary committee voted this week to ban all livestock markets across the Union in response to the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Whitehead believes an EFA with teeth would have been able to avoid the last animal epidemic to hit Europe. "If there had been a strong food authority in place it could have saved us two years in the control of BSE," he said

Moves to boost the EFA could be well-received by some countries that were initially cautious about ceding powers when the Prodi Commission first unveiled the policy in 1999, but that are now are now changing their stance as the lessons of BSE sink in.

But the draft report could face challenges by some Euro MPs who fear an unaccountable body would rob the Parliament of key legislative powers.

Euro MPs will try to toughen proposals for a new European Food Authority (EFA) in the wake of the crises over BSE and foot-and-mouth disease.