Commission plans radical overhaul of food safety laws

Date: 09/12/1999

By Renée Cordes

THE European Commission will call later this month for the most fundamental overhaul of EU food legislation to date and lay the groundwork for the creation of a new food safety agency to help restore battered consumer confidence.

Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne and his enterprise counterpart Erkki Likkanen will unveil plans to plug the gaps in more than 80 pieces of EU food safety law in the institution's most eagerly-awaited and potentially most controversial policy initiative so far. The full Commission is due to approve the proposals at its last meeting before the Christmas break on 22 December.

Work on the White Paper has been a top priority since President Romano Prodi and his team took office, reflecting the urgent need to restore public trust in food severely damaged by the recent health scares which forced poultry, milk, Coca-Cola and a host of other products off grocery shelves in several member states.

"We need to be proactive, not reactive," Prodi told the European Parliament this autumn. "The only way to do this, and to restore public confidence, is to put in place a truly efficient and credible food safety system."

Under the plans drawn up by Byrne and Liikanen, member states will be urged to implement a raft of new measures by 2002. These are expected to include proposals for streamlining and modernising scores of existing directives covering agricultural products and processed food.

The Commission will also call for tough new regulations to govern hygiene procedures at every stage of food production 'from farm to fork', animal feed, genetically modified organisms and foodstuffs fortified with vitamins and minerals.

The White Paper will be followed by concrete proposals for legislation in the new year. But the Commission intends to press ahead immediately with its plan to set up an independent agency to oversee the implementation of existing laws.

A debate has raged since the summer over whether this body should have far-reaching 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 Commission has yet to take a formal decision on which approach to recommend, but insiders say it is "leaning heavily" towards the latter option. Officials argue that setting up an FDA-style agency would require changes to the EU treaty which would take too long to implement and Prodi himself has indicated that he favours the EMEA model. He told MEPs recently that although the medicines agency only made technical decisions, it did so "with notable swiftness and authority".

Commission officials believe that most of the money for the new body could be found from within the EU's existing budget, but may suggest supplementing this with fees levied on industry. Consumer groups have, however, questioned whether an agency which depended in part on food firms for financial support could be entirely impartial.

The call for a new agency has been welcomed by food industry groups. "The agency should take the good bits from the FDA and the good bits from the EMEA," said Dominique Taeymans of the EU food and drink industry lobby group CIAA. "There are many issues related to risk assessment where there is need for scientific advice at European level. The agency should maximise scientific capacity and bring coherence to food legislation."

But European consumer organisation BEUC says it is not yet convinced that a new body would make a real difference. Governments also remain sceptical about the idea. "What member states have said is we do not need more bureaucracy," said a Finnish source. "We need something that is efficient and functional, something which has a real task to perform."

The European Commission is to call for the most fundamental overhaul of EU food legislation to date and lay the groundwork for the creation of a new food safety agency to help restore battered consumer confidence.