CONTAMINANTS - European Commission Working Documents on Dioxins in Food

They are working documents only and they do not represent an agreed Commission position or firm proposals from the Commission. Rather, the working documents have been produced as an aid to initial discussions on possible options for controls on dioxins.

There are three working documents:

1. A draft Explanatory Note setting out the background to the Commission's views on the options for limiting the presence of dioxins in food and feed (SANCO 1157/01 )
2. A draft Commission Regulation (SANCO/0384/01)
3. A draft Commission Recommendation (SANCO/0385/01)

• Statutory maximum limits in various foods. The working documents list animal products (milk, meat, fish, and eggs) as well as oils, vegetables, fruit and cereals for consideration. This option would be introduced by a Commission Regulation, in line with previous proposals on other contaminants in food.
• Monitoring against non-statutory 'action' levels and 'target' levels with follow-up investigations when action levels are exceeded. These options would be introduced by a Commission Recommendation.

The working documents were discussed briefly at a meeting of the EC Working Group on Contaminants on Friday 23 March. The Commission gave an explanation of the background to the documents and answered general questions from Member States. A similar initial exchange of views on the principal elements of the proposals will take place at the EC Standing Committee for Foodstuffs on 23 April.

The Commission is taking forward parallel initiatives on dioxins in animal feed. Initial discussions on these took place on 26 March.

The Commission working documents deal with complex issues which will need very careful consideration. The FSA are circulating these working documents now to provide an opportunity for them to be considered at this early stage.

Extract from Working Document - Exploratory Memorandum

4. LEGISLATIVE MEASURES -BACKGROUND

Therefore it is foreseen that the Commission will present later this year a comprehensive strategy to reduce dioxins in the environment, feed and food. This strategy would focus on two aspects:

• from the environmental side, it would focus on current and future measures to reduce the release of dioxins into the environment
• from the feed and food safety side, it would address mainly the way to decrease the presence of dioxins in feedingstuffs and consequently in foodstuffs in order to achieve the target levels and whereby human dioxin exposure falls below the TWI set by SCF.

However, measures need already to be taken at the level of the food and feed chain to limit the presence of dioxins in food and feed.

Proposed legislative measures

Besides the measures to limit the release of dioxins into the environment, the proposed measures for the reduction of dioxins and dioxin like PCBs in feed and food consist of a combination of:

Maximum limits:

The establishment of maximum limits at a strict but feasible level, gradually decreasing with time, in order to discard the unacceptably highly contaminated products. The establishment of a limit is a necessary tool for management and to ensure uniform application across the EU.

In order to ensure that all operators in the food and feed chain continue to do efforts and take all the necessary measures to limit the presence of dioxins in feed and food, stricter maximum limits applicable within a period of 3-5 years time are proposed for the categories of contaminated feedingstuffs and foodstuffs which present the highest contamination and/or which contribute the most to dioxin exposure.

From a toxicological point of view, possible limits should include dioxins and dioxin-like PCB. However, as the data on the occurrence of dioxin-like PCBs are still very limited, in particular for feedingstuffs but also for foodstuffs, this approach may lead to unrealistic limits because the contribution of the dioxin-like PCBs to the total contamination load may be high (up to 4 times the dioxin contribution). But not acting immediately for dioxin-like PCBs should not prevent immediate action for dioxins. It is therefore pragmatic to propose measures in the meantime for dioxins, awaiting more comprehensive data for dioxin-like PCBs combined with an active approach to obtain these data.

These maximum limits will be laid down in a

• Commission Regulation for foodstuffs in accordance with Article 2 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 315/93 of 8 February 1993 laying down Community procedures for contaminants in food.
• Commission Directive for feedingstuffs in accordance with Article 10 of Council Directive 1999/29/EC of 22 April 1999 on the undesirable substances and products in animal nutrition.

Permanent monitoring of the presence of dioxins and PCBs in feed and food across the EU is necessary. In case of an abnormal increase in the level of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs, sources and/or pathways of contamination have to be identified. Once identified, the measures to prevent or reduce contamination from this source should be determined and applied. Mutual information between Member States and Commission by regular reporting should be ensured.

In order to determine what has to be considered as an abnormal increased level, an action level has to be set. Exceeding the action threshold would also automatically imply an analysis of the dioxin-like PCBs in order to build up a reliable database. This will allow to adapt the current limits for dioxins to cover also dioxin-like PCBs in the future in accordance with the toxicological evaluation performed by SCF .

In addition, target levels should be set at a level such that they would result in a ultimate dietary human weekly exposure for the human population lower than 7 pg WHO-TEQ dioxins. (including dioxin-like PCBs). Target values will act as the driving force for measures necessary to further reduce emissions into the environment. With increasing decline of emissions, the distribution of the contamination levels for the different food groups will shift to lower levels and will (slowly) come closer to the target levels. As a result, the action thresholds and maximum limits might be revised after a certain period of time.

The action threshold levels and target levels are proposed to be laid down in a Commission Recommendation as a package with the Commission Directive/Regulation establishing maximum limits.

This Recommendation is based on Article 211 of the Treaty establishing the European Community .In accordance to this Article, the Commission can formulate recommendations on matters dealt with in the Treaty if the Commission considers it necessary .The recommendation should also list, besides the action levels and target levels) the means to reduce dioxin exposure (identification of sources, elimination of sources, analysis for dioxin-like PCBs).