Bid to boost food safety body’s power

Date: 05/10/00

By Renee Cordes

MEPS are calling for the planned EU food safety body to be given the power to demand key information from member states so that it can assess potential health risks as thoroughly and efficiently as possible.

A report set to be adopted by the consumer and environmental affairs committee next week also insists that the European Parliament should be allowed to question the person nominated to head the organisation before the appointment is confirmed.

Both moves are aimed at bringing transparency and accountability to the new body, which is being set up to try to restore battered consumer confidence in the wake of several food health scares. "Information - knowledge - is what we seek as consumers," states the report drawn up by UK Conservative MEP John Bowis. "We want to be able to trust those who set out to advise us."

The Commission is calling for the independent authority - a key plank of its plan to overhaul EU food legislation - to be set up by 2002 to oversee the implementation of existing laws. It has suggested that the body's main task should be risk assessment, leaving the drafting of new legislation and other risk management tasks in the hands of Union policy-makers.

The Commission has yet to decide whether the new body should have extensive decision-making powers similar to those wielded by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or more limited responsibilities similar to those of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA).

The EU executive is believed to be leaning heavily towards the latter, amid concerns that setting up an FDA-style agency would require changes to the EU treaty which would take too long to implement. Bowis agrees, with the caveat that the agency must co-operate as closely as possible with European, national and international authorities.

MEPs are calling for the planned EU food safety body to be given the power to demand key information from Member States so that it can assess potential health risks as thoroughly and efficiently as possible.