Commission COM Document, 18 July 2007
The Commission has today published this report as a COM Document. It is available on this site at COM/2007/418. The following is the Executive Summary provided at the start of the report.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Food additives are subject to a safety evaluation before they are permitted for use in the European Community. It is also a requirement that they are re-evaluated whenever necessary in light of changing conditions of use and new scientific information. European Parliament and Council Directives 2003/114/EC and 2003/115/EC require the Commission to present a status report to the European Parliament and the Council on the re-evaluations of food additives which have been carried out.
This report provides a summary of the recent additive re-evaluations undertaken by the Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and describes the related actions taken by the European Commission on the basis of the scientific opinions.
Some of the additive evaluations were undertaken when the SCF was first established in the 1970's. Therefore the Commission felt that it is timely to request that the EFSA undertake to review the evaluations of all currently permitted food additives. This report additionally describes the rationale and priority setting for this review by the EFSA.