EU expansion rooted in food safety
further obstacle this week with Parliament waving through proposed
Commission rules, leaving room for ministers to take the final
decision in coming weeks, writes Lindsey Partos.
In light of European enlargement next month that brings the borders of ten new Member States into the fold, the rules on food and feed backed yesterday by MEP's are rooted in food safety, and in the need to ensure tight cross-border controls.
Welcoming the vote in Parliament, the dynamo behind a raft of food safety rules in Europe, Commissioner David Byrne said : "This regulation will significantly improve our ability to manage the food and feed chain, making it possible to provide ever safer food for Europe's consumers, and to verify compliance with animal health and animal welfare rules."
Tapping into consumer fears over food safety, a recent Eurobarometer survey revealed that 90 per cent of EU consumers want the Commission to work to "ensure that agricultural products are healthy and safe", the new controls of food, feed and live animals 'will continue to be primarily a task for Member States', added Byrne.
Under the new rules - on course for enforcement by 1 January 2006 - European countries will reinforce the verification of compliance with food and feed law and with animal health and animal welfare rules at all stages of production, processing and distribution.
This includes the introduction of management principles (documented control procedures and internal audits) and stricter rules on the accreditation of laboratories.
National control plans with specific operational criteria on elements like staff, training and documented control procedures will have to be established. Audits by the Commission's Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) will evaluate performance against these control plans.
In addition to current requirements for contingency plans in the feed and veterinary sectors, contingency plans for food crises must also be established and staff suitably trained to implement these plans, said the Commission.
The new regulations will also establish a common regime for controls on food and feed imports, basing the control frequency on risk. This means that for products that are known to present a particular risk, such as aflatoxins in some nuts, the sampling frequency at import may be more stringent than for products with a lower risk profile. Currently, uniform import procedures exist mainly for food and feed of animal origin.
The main development in the FVO's role will be a move away from focusing on individual production establishments towards evaluating the overall operation of national control systems. Where there are specific problems to address, the FVO will inspect these situations in addition to the general audit, as is currently the practice.
Uder the rules Brussels will have the power to intervene if it has proof that a Member State's control system is inadequate, allowing the Commission to take interim measures 'to ensure the protection of human health, animal health, animal welfare and the environment'.
The measures include suspending the right to place food and feed on the EU's internal market.
Developing countries exporting to the EU are already now required to present guarantees that products meet EU standards. According to the Commission, the regulation provides for a number of initiatives, particularly training and twinning projects, to 'make it easier for developing countries to implement EU requirements for food and feed controls'.
'These activities will be organised as part of the EU's external aid programmes and will primarily focus on the countries listed by the Development Aid Committee of the OECD, » said Brussels.
Changes to the regulations now pass to the Council, expected in the next few weeks. Once endorsed the final text will be published in the EU's Official Journal - in other words it will become law. Enforcement is due to apply from 1 January 2006.
Three Directives that are currently in place will be repealed and replaced by the provisions of the new regulation once it enters into force. These Directives are: The implementing rules on sampling and analysis for the official control of feedingstuffs (Council Directive 70/373/EEC); Rules on official inspections in the field of animal nutrition (Council Directive 95/53/EEC) and Rules on the Official Control of Foodstuffs (Council Directives 89/379/EEC and 93/99/EC).
