“Let’s stop the scare tactics and deal with the facts”

Date: 22/11/01

Health scares in the EU have produced new laws and bodies to better monitor what we consume. Laurence Frost examines what is on the table

FROM day one, Romano Prodi's European Commission had little choice but to make food safety one of its priorities. Consumers were still reeling from successive food scares over BSE and dioxin-contaminated chicken-feed as his team took office at the end of 1999.

Within days, Prodi's first major policy initiative had been set in motion: the establishment of a new authority to oversee food safety and a comprehensive review of food legislation.

By January 2000, Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne had tabled his White Paper on Food Safety, outlining plans for 84 initiatives in the field as well as the establishment of the new food authority.

Two years on, the Commission is on course to have tabled over two-thirds of the planned proposals by the

January 2002 deadline it set itself - rapid action by EU standards - and the three most important White Paper initiatives are among them.

The first of these is the flagship regulation which establishes the European Food Authority (EFA) and lays down a framework of general principles designed to apply across the board to all EU food law.

It introduces tough traceability requirements, obliging operators at every stage in the production process, from farm to fork, to keep records of the source and destination of each shipment. The precautionary principle already applied to environmental legislation is for the first time enshrined in EU food law, allowing governments to halt sales of suspect products when there is a lack of adequate scientific knowledge for a proper risk assessment.

As well as tightening EU food rules, the regulation sets out to boost public confidence in their implementation under the supervision of the food authority.

By coordinating scientific opinion and research on food risks, and communicating its findings to the public, it is hoped the EFA will be able to avoid such fiascos such as last month's discovery that a UK study revealing significant BSE infection rates among sheep had accidentally been conducted using tissue from cows.

"This sort of thing should never happen again if we are to have any faith in our science," says Beate Kettlitz of EU consumers' group BEUC.

It now looks unlikely that the EFA will be up and running as scheduled early next year even if EU governments decide on its location at next month's Laeken summit. Luxembourg, Helsinki, Parma, Lille, Barcelona and perhaps Brussels are in the running.

In an interview with European Voice, Byrne suggested that the Belgian capital was likely to host the EFA during its first few months of operation. "So far, we are on track," he said. "Recruitment of officials has begun."

Persistent differences between ministers and MEPs on the composition of the EFA board and the European Parliament's right to veto appointments also threaten to drag the regulation into lengthy negotiations between the institutions.

Another key plank of Byrne's food safety drive has suffered a setback recently. Environment ministers last month declined to resume authorisations of new genetically modified organisms

(GMOs) in Europe, despite the adoption of strict traceability and labelling rules by the Commission.

Besides allowing for GMOs to be traced individually through the production process, the new measures broaden and strengthen labelling requirements to cover products such as genetically modified sugar that carry no detectable trace of the modified DNA proteins from which they are derived.

In the health commissioner's interview, Byrne makes clearer than ever his frustration with the French-led hardcore of six countries still pledging to block new approvals. "Let's stop the scare tactics and deal with the facts," he said. "All of the independent assessments so far have identified no health risk for GMO food."

Byrne's stance has been strongly endorsed by his environment and internal market counterparts, Margot Wallström and Frits Bolkestein.

In a meeting with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair this week, Bolkestein urged him to do more to encourage the development of GM technologies despite strong public opposition.

Major feature on the EU's food safety policy. Article forms part of a special report on food safety and agriculture.