Foodlaw-Reading Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Food Law News - EU - 2022

Commission News Item, 13 December 2022

OFFICIAL CONTROLS - Health and food audits and analysis - Programme 2023 released

EU Commission: Health and food audits and analysis - Programme 2023 A copy of this document is available on this site (click on image)

The following is the Executive Summary taken from the publication:

Executive summary

The Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety of the European Commission develops and implements the Commission’s policies on food safety and public health. Its Directorate for Health and food audits and analysis (“the Directorate”) dedicates most of its resources to controls. These monitor the implementation and enforcement of European Union (EU) legislation in the areas of food and feed safety, animal health, animal welfare, plant health, EU quality standards (the Food domain) and in certain areas of human health (the Health domain).

This document, the Health and food audits and analysis work programme 2023, presents the Directorate and its controls, priorities for controls in 2021-2025 and the detailed activities planned for 2023.

Multi-annual plan 2021-2025

The Directorate carries out its controls in accordance with a multi-annual plan. The multi-annual plan 2021-2025 establishes the priorities and objectives of its controls for the five-year period. It results from a comprehensive prioritisation process aiming to ensure that the Directorate fulfils its obligation for carrying out Commission controls whilst ensuring that it covers the various policy areas in proportion to the risks posed in those areas. The prioritisation also ensures consistency with the Commission’s political priorities, and in particular the Farm to Fork Strategy.

The multi-annual plan 2021-2025 is subject to an annual review and, where appropriate, an amendment. In this context, four new control priorities have been identified for the period 2023-2025: animal welfare of fish, animal welfare of cattle kept for the production of beef, animal byproducts and derived products intended for export to the EU and plant health survey programmes. Other adjustments are detailed in section 4 of the document.

Control activities in 2023

In 2023, the Directorate intends to perform 288 planned controls complemented by “on-demand” controls, for which numbers cannot be estimated. From those 288, 165 are audits and similar controls (e.g. joint assessments, joint country visits, remote assessments, and fact-finding studies), and 123 are analyses (office-based controls).

In 2023, controls will continue on most priorities addressed in previous years and will commence on several priority themes of the multi-annual plan:

• Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), on two additional priorities: i) AMR monitoring in zoonotic and commensal bacteria and ii) veterinary medicinal products, with an emphasis on the fight against AMR;
• Animal welfare, with the welfare of fish and the welfare of cattle kept for the production of beef;
• Feed safety, with medicated feed being addressed as part of the scope of audits on feed hygiene and animal by-products and derived products will be covered in third countries.

The annexes to this document provide an overview of the multi-annual plan 2021-2025 and detail of control activities for 2023.

Controls in the Food domain

In 2023, planned controls in the Food domain account for 273 controls, including 150 audits and similar controls. These and other “on-demand” controls will address some 43 priority themes from the multi-annual plan such as food and feed safety, animal diseases and plant pests, animal welfare, third country listing and market access as well as third countries’ compliance with EU requirements for the export of animals and goods to the EU and laboratories and testing facilities’ adherence to the applicable standards for risk assessment of regulated products.

Controls in the Health domain

In 2023, controls in the Health domain, most of which are demand-based, will continue to cover the areas of medical devices, clinical trials for human medicines, active pharmaceutical ingredients for human use and AMR. Controls on AMR will step up, covering 4 priority themes as of 2023.

Other activities planned in 2023

The Directorate will continue working on the other non-control activities, in particular on:

• the sustainable use of pesticides, with the negotiation process on the legislative proposal for a new Regulation on the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products. This new proposal is part of a package of measures to reduce the environmental footprint of the EU’s food system. This proposal aims to overhaul the existing rules on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (Directive 2009/128/EC) once approved by Member States in the Council and the European Parliament, under the normal legislative procedure;
• networking activities with the competent authorities of Member States and Norway and Iceland with respect to the multi-annual national control plans and the national audit systems, to enhance official control systems in the Member States and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries;
• the Better Training for Safer Food (BTSF) programme, the range of training options and delivery through BTSF ACADEMY will be further developed;
• the management of the lists of third countries’ food-producing establishments exportingor wishing to export to the EU;
• the coordination of enforcement actions addressing the Directorate’s recommendations from its audits addressed to Member States;
• the input into the review or development of legislation in different areas or sectors.

Further details on these activities are provided in section 6 of this document