To go to main Food Law Index page, click here.
I am very glad of the opportunity to speak to the Arthur Cox Conference on Food Law. I am especially glad to speak on a subject of outmost importance to all of us present here today, food safety.
Simply put, ladies and gentlemen, in the minds of the citizens of Europe, safety is the most important ingredient of their food. Other considerations very important considerations such as quality, value for money, choice, taste etc, come second. When the consumer chooses a product from the supermarket shelve, their first and over-riding concern is that it should be safe.
The recent crises or scandals such as BSE or the more recent dioxin contamination have called into question the very safety of food. The fall-out from such events can have grave consequences. And I know from first hand experience, even after only a few weeks in Office in Brussels, just how important and far reaching these consequences are.
Confidence is very fragile. Each successive crisis dioxin, sludge, BSE, undermines the public's trust in the capacity of the food industry, in its broadest sense, and in the public authorities, to ensure that their food is safe. And we all suffer from the fall-out from this loss of confidence.
The citizen's confidence in European or national authorities and even in scientists to make sure that food in Europe is safe is undermined. Economic growth, employment and competitiveness in the European agro-food industry is threatened. And the functioning of the Single market is called into question.
Restoring public confidence is our challenge. And it is a very formidable challenge. Ensuring that our food is safe is our responsibility. Health and consumer protection are crucial to the everyday life of Europe's citizens and the Commission has made food safety a top priority.
And let me assure you that the Commission is very serious when it says that food safety is a top priority. We are not pandering to any particular lobby. Nor are we trying to curry favour from a European public which has grown increasingly sceptical about the benefits of European integration.
Instead, we are acting on a hard political reality: failure to address public concerns over food safety is very dangerous. One has only to look at the most contentious issues to cross the Commission's desk in recent years. BSE, GMOs, growth-promoting hormones in beef, antibiotic residues, dioxin etc. have all taken up a huge amount of time and political energy.
There is now an opportunity to put matters right.
First and foremost, the Amsterdam Treaty provides for a considerably stronger Community role in health and consumer policy. We have more legislative options open to us to address the issue. We now need to shape these new provisions into policy by putting in place a truly efficient and credible food safety system at the EU level.
In doing so we need to be proactive rather than reactive. As President Prodi mentioned in a recent speech to the European Parliament, 'we should not be running around putting out fires but making sure fires do not start or if they so that they don't take hold'.
The administrative framework has also changed. In the past responsibility for health related issues was widely dispersed within the Commission services. This led to health issues being given a much lower priority than they deserve.
The European Parliament, in its report on the BSE crisis, recognised this as a major weakness and recommended that responsibilities be brought together under a single Commissioner. While there are still some areas still to be decided, this recommendation has been acted upon by this Commission.
The new Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection, under my charge, will ensure that there is a unified and coherent approach towards health-related dossiers.
I consider, therefore, that there is now a much improved overall political and administrative structure to ensure that citizens interests are better served when Community action in the field of health is in question. The challenge will be to ensure that this structure is exploited to the full. A number of important initiatives have already taken place.
Soon after my appointment, I announced my intention to bring forward a White Paper on Food Safety. The aims of this Paper are three fold: First to modernise our legislation. Second to increase the capability of our scientific advice system to respond rapidly and effectively. Third, to re-inforce controls from farm to table.
Admittedly, food legislation lacks overall coherence and it must be brought up to date. The European Union disposes of an enormous body of legislation (more than 100 basic directives) on agricultural products and processed food.
It is a body of legislation which evolved with time, led by the objective of the creation of the single market. For this reason in 1997 a Green Paper on Food Law identified the need for a major review of food legislation. We need to streamline and modernise our food law. We need a single, coherent, body of legislation.
Food law must cover the whole food chain, "from farm to fork", including animal feed production. It should also include the promotion of safe food practices at produce or consumer level and the promotion of a healthy diet and healthy eating habits.
It needs to be flexible, so it can easily be kept in line with advancing scientific knowledge, new production techniques and the discovery of new health hazards. This implies that primary Community legislation should also allow quick technical adaptation by the Commission.
A coherent legislation should also identify and eliminate existing loopholes and gaps. The recent dioxin crisis and the scandal of sewage sludge have highlighted such gaps which need to be addressed such as :
Specific food related legislative measures the White Paper will in particular cover the following topics:
Food safety emergencies
The recent dioxin crisis has clearly demonstrated the necessity to improve the Rapid Alert System to ensure a rapid and efficient response to food safety emergencies. We also need to widen its scope to cover the whole feed and food chain. Ideally, we should be in a situation where we can trace, identify and recall contaminated foodstuffs quickly and efficiently.
Secondly, safeguard procedures to be applied in case of food safety emergencies need to be further developed. They are at present fragmented and incomplete and need to be improved. We need to be able to take immediate action with regard to consumer protection, both within the Community and for products imported from third countries.
Food hygiene
The existing hygiene provisions on agricultural production and food production, which are at present dealt with by many different directives, are too complex and in many cases overlap. The intention will be to bring them together in one comprehensive piece of legislation. This will ensure that legislative provisions are coherent and understandable and that loopholes are closed.
Microbiological contamination
There is the need to strengthen existing measures in order to reduce or eliminate the presence of microbiological hazards such as Salmonella, E-Coli and Listeria, which are a very serious threat to human health.
GMOs
We need to get our act together on GMOs. The Environment Council adopted a common position on a revision to the main Community legislation on GMOs, Directive 90/220, in June of this year. New requirements relating in particular to labelling, risk assessment and traceability were agreed. We now need to translate this structure into the full body of Community legislation on GMOs.
Furthermore, I believe we have to respond to the consumer demand for a GMO free line of products. Therefore, I intend to work with my colleague Erki Likkanen in order to speed up the preparation of a proposal in this area.
Plant protection Products
The public does not want pesticide residues in their food. However we have to accept that residues are sometimes unavoidable. The important point is to define maximum residues limits to ensure that they do no pose any risk to health. For this reason I intend to speed up the work we do in this area.
Legislation should, of course, be based on sound and up-to-date scientific information and advice. In 1997, in the wake of the BSE crisis, the Commission renewed its scientific advisory system using three guiding principles: Excellence, Independence and Transparency.
These are guaranteed by a number of specific actions such as a rigorous selection procedure, the separation of the Committees from the legislative services, the public declaration of the scientists interests and the publication of the scientific opinions on the Internet.
The system proved itself last week when the Scientific Steering Committee, made up of 16 top class scientists from throughout Europe, adopted an unanimous opinion that the existing EU provisions on exports of UK beef are sufficient to ensure that there is no threat to health. Notwithstanding the huge political pressures involved, they proved that they could take independent decisions based on sound science.
Nevertheless Europe's citizens and Europe's institutions demand even greater independence and accountability. We badly need to consolidate public confidence in our food science. The scientists must be seen to be totally independent from policy-makers.
We are currently examining a number of options. One would be to set up an Independent European Food Agency. Several Member States have already taken similar initiatives by setting up their own independent food safety authorities. The idea is that such agencies are more flexible and better equipped to ensure food safety.
A European Food Agency could, perhaps, be modelled along the lines of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA). This agency has no decision-making power of its own: it takes purely technical action but does so with notable swiftness and efficiency. If anything goes wrong in connection with a drug, the source of the problem can be traced within hours - whereas in the case of a food scare it can take weeks.
Another potential model - one of many is the USA's Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has much more far-reaching powers of decision. This would enable action on safety to be taken very rapidly, independently of the intervention of political institutions.
The exact model to follow has not yet been finalised. But I can assure you, that in the White Paper, we will look at the options and come forward with our views on how the issue of a Food Agency Agency should be addressed. The two aims, independence and scientific advice on the one hand and accountability on the other hand, can be reconciled.
Let me know turn to the third general aim of the White Paper: Food control. I believe you will agree with me that food legislation is useless unless it is implemented and enforced. Currently food control is conducted at three different levels :
The current system recognises and distinguishes the control tasks at each control level. It is logical and complies with the principle of subsidiarity. However, additional legislative proposals are needed to improve the functioning of the system in three main areas :
Another element I would want to touch upon is information. The Amsterdam Treaty explicitly guarantees consumers the right of information. This unquestionably also applies to food. Labelling provisions are of course the principal means to convey information to consumers and this will continue. Other ways to inform consumers, however, also need to be exploited to the full.
One such system is the Rapid Alert System by which Member States inform one another and the European Commission about potential food hazards. This currently does not include sharing information with consumers. We are looking at ways to make this possible as well as improving the overall system to ensure reliable, fast, and factual relay of information.
Of course, food safety also has an international dimension - as the European Union is a signatory of the WTO/SPS Agreement.
Our position is very straightforward: Our priority is and will remain the protection of consumers' health. There is no possibility of the Community being party to international agreements where we believe this would jeopardise our citizens' health. This however also means that we will continue to fulfil our international obligations and we will base our decisions on sound scientific advice. In fact this is clearly stipulated in the WTO/SPS Agreement which allows us to establish a higher level of sanitary or phytosanitary protection than that based on international standards provided that we can scientifically justify it on the basis of a comprehensive risk assessment.
In the upcoming Millennium Round of WTO negotiations the EU needs to push for the establishment of credible international food standards. This will allow the participation of all stakeholders including consumers' representatives in the process. It will also further consolidate the WTO framework for the use of the precautionary principle in the area of food safety.
As you may be aware, the Commission is working towards an agreed definition and guidelines on the use of the precautionary principle. Our intent is to bring the discussion to the international level so as to build a consensus.
Whatever trade negotiations the EU may enter into, EU food policy must have food safety as its prime objective and should be at the service of consumers and their health.
Having said that, I firmly believe that a rigorous food safety policy is also in the interests of European farmers and processors. They have paid a heavy economic price arising from the BSE and the dioxin crises. They deserve a food safety policy which will ensure that their interests as farmers and producers as well as consumers are promoted to the full.
The food industry also has a huge interest in restoring consumer confidence to the full. I have already been impressed by the commitment of the industry to the highest standards. After all, you are among the biggest potential losers in the event of problems with food safety. Years of hard work, goodwill and valuable brand names can be lost overnight through a combination of carelessness, bad luck or misadventure.
I am also aware of the concerns of your industry that the issue of food safety is sometimes exaggerated. After all, I am being told, food has never been safer, the incidence of foodborne diseases has never been lower, and choice and price have never before been so favourable. There are very stong arguments that all this is true. But, frankly, industry has performed poorly in conveying this message to the public. We all have lessons to learn from recent events: this is perhaps yours.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In closing I would like to emphasise once more the Commission's commitment to Food Safety. The recent crises have caused a number of ills but they have given us a number of lessons to follow. First we need to improve and consolidate our food and feed legislation in a coherent, integrated manner covering the entire food and feed chain. Second, we need to optimise and enforce food controls; and third, we need to ensure the highest level of independent scientific advice which is transparent and understandable to all.
I am determined to deliver on all these objectives. They are all worth pursuing. They are all necessary. And above all they are what our public expects and demands from us. We must succeed in meeting their expectations.
Thank you very much.