EU food authority to attempt to restore confidence

A new EU food authority is to concentrate on risk assessment in an effort to restore consumer confidence in European food which has been battered by a succession of scandals and safety scares, The Irish Times has learned.

The European Commission is set to take the key steps towards its formation on Wednesday with an imprimatur allowing it to evaluate all aspects of food safety.

The stand-alone authority will complement, nonetheless, a radical overhaul of EU food legislation to be overseen by the Irish Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, and completed by 2002.

The Commission is due at its first meeting of the new year to ratify the type of authority to be put in place and approve publication of a white paper on food safety drawn up by Mr Byrne, Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection.

A draft paper to go before the Commission, it is understood, suggests the authority be primarily involved in risk assessment, the provision of scientific advice and information-gathering. It is also envisaged there will be a significant degree of co-ordination with national food safety agencies, such as the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, when they are in place, but they will retain a monitoring and enforcement role.

The authority is to be modelled on aspects of the European Age ncy for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA), which is based in London, to provide a scientific advice system that is rapid and effective. The crucial area of "risk management", exposed by the BSE and dioxin crises as inadequate, tardy and fragmented, is to be expressly excluded from the ambit of the EU authority.

Contrary to speculation, the EU Food and Veterinary Office, based in Ireland, will not be subsumed into the authority, but its inspection and audit powers will be extended.

A requirement for an unprecedented degree of political accountability and transparency means the new body will have well-defined links with primary "risk managers"; notably the Commission, European Parliament and the EU Council.

However, the terms of the Amsterdam Treaty will facilitate formation of a particularly strong dynamic with the parliament, which is considered to have performed well in the aftermath of BSE and dioxin contamination in Belgium.

The white paper proposes strengthening and extending the "rapid alert" mechanism deployed when food-related scares arise and to extend its remit to the animal feed chain.

The establishment of set, acceptable limits of environmental contaminants, including pollutants (such as dioxin and PCBs) and pesticides, which may be present in food and feed is also signalled.

It identifies more than 80 areas where European food legislation needs to be improved. Existing hygiene provisions on agricultural and food production, which are considered too complex and unco-ordinated, are to be streamlined, it is proposed, yet made more strict.

The vexatious issue of genetically-modified organisms, it is believed, will continue to be considered to a large extent separately under the environment heading, though issues of labelling GM foods, risk assessment vis-a-vis public health and their traceability in the food chain are to be considered within the reforms of EU food law. So, too, is the issue of establishing a line of guaranteed GMO-free foods.

With GM foods, but also throughout all policy issues on public health and consumer protection considered under the paper, the precautionary principle - supposed to dictate policy in the event of scientific uncertainty - is expected to have enhanced standing.

According to one senior EU official, a stricter legal definition of the principle could prove controversial with the food industry and the EU's trading partners.

There are indications that the authority will provide advice on all aspects of food including diet but, contrary to the recommendation of an independent scientific expert panel in December, its work will not include non-food products, environment and public health. The EMEA is to continue its role in approving human and veterinary drugs.

EU scientific committees - part of a system considered to have worked well and independently in the face of recent food scandals in Europe - are expected to continue to operate with leading experts from member-states advising the Commission. But those related to food are likely to be reconstituted under the new authority.