Key Notes

Food safety : improving health measures and restoring consumer confidence

Food is at the heart of European culture and civilisation and is of major importance from both an economic and a public health perspective. It concerns all of us, everyday. In an open and globalised world, Community action is vital in assuring all European citizens – from one end of Europe to the other – that the products they consume are among the safest in the world.

To this end, the EPP-ED Group has initiated the rapid implementation of a proper mechanism to ensure a genuine improvement in food safety throughout Europe.

Food legislation is now based on the concepts of traceability and risk prevention.

• The success of the food policy is dependent on the traceability of food at all stages, from primary production to processing, storage and distribution.
• Prevention is based on a process of risk analysis incorporating three interdependent stages: risk assessment, risk management and risk communication.

I. Establishment of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

It is important to strengthen or establish harmonised, high safety standards and to monitor these standards. Specifically, as far as the EPP-ED Group is concerned, for both food and feedstuffs this means:

• improving hygiene conditions
• reducing existing or potential contamination factors
• allowing the highest possible level of traceability throughout the food chain, from production through to final consumption, in accordance with the ‘farm to table’ concept.

More environmentally-friendly farming practices are also essential. Controlled use of pesticides and fertilisers as well as antibiotics in livestock intended for human consumption are at the centre of the EPP-ED Group’s priorities.

In this context, the EPP-ED Group hopes that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will play a key role in restoring consumer confidence. The EFSA’s main responsibility is scientific and technical evaluation. The objective is to base the new food legislation on the best possible scientific advice. The EPP-ED has stated that the Authority’s opinions should be founded on scientific excellence, transparency and independence.

A rapid alert system, managed by the European Commission in coordination with the national food safety agencies, has been set up to make possible the most effective response within the entire Community market.

The EPP-ED Group strongly supports the need for consistency between European food legislation and international technical standards, particularly within the framework of the WTO, and has introduced the concept of ‘traditional’ food products.


II. Improving consumer information through food labelling

One of the key elements for the EPP-ED Group is to improve the conditions for consumer information. Consumers must be able to make informed choices and to exercise free will on the basis of clear, precise and accurate information.

The labelling requirements, which are supported by the EPP-ED Group, relate to both the composition of the ingredients, especially allergens whose presence could damage consumers’ health, and to additives (colourings, sweeteners and others) and preservatives.

The EPP-ED Group has argued successfully for a sensible balance to be struck to allow citizens to make informed choices about the products they are purchasing. Information on packaging will now be more comprehensive and consistent throughout the EU, giving details, for example, of recommended daily intakes or ingredients which might have allergic side-effects. On the new compulsory system of labelling of beef products, the EPP-ED Group was able to intervene to prevent the adoption at EU level of unnecessarily expensive and uninformative requirements whilst ensuring that all useful consumer information would be communicated.

In this respect, one of the EPP-ED Group’s priorities is the implementation of a large-scale information campaign to disseminate good food practices. In the home, health measures, correct food preservation, balanced eating and provision of the essential daily nutrients are guarantees of safe food. Young children should be the campaign’s main target group.


III. GM foods and animal feed will now be clearly labelled throughout Europe

For more than ten years the EU has been trying to develop an appropriate legal framework, based on the precautionary principle, for allowing GM products onto the European market. A de facto moratorium was agreed between the Member States in 1998 -- a kind of ‘standstill agreement’ with no legal force, until the traceability and labelling of GMOs could be regulated in the most watertight way possible.

The moratorium is now likely to come to an end with the advent of two laws covering safety requirements and consumer information and also taking account of the interests of the research industry. In July 2003 the European Parliament, with substantial support from EPP-ED Members, reached agreement with the Member States on two regulations which add important new elements to the existing authorisation system.

The first regulation introduces comprehensive rules on checking and labelling foodstuffs and, for the first time, animal feed as well. It extends the existing labelling requirements to:

• all foods produced from GMOs, regardless of whether DNA or proteins derived from GMOs can be detected in the final product;
• all genetically modified animal feed.

The most controversial issue was the level of the threshold of GMO content above which a product would have to be labelled. Minute traces of GMOs can get into conventional food and feed during cultivation, harvest, transport and processing. This is a fact, and an aspect that is not confined to GMOs. In the production of food, animal feed and seed it is practically impossible to achieve 100% pure products. As it is not always technically possible to prevent other products from being contaminated by GMOs – traces of GMOs in transport tankers can, for instance, become mixed with GMO-free wheat – a threshold of 0.9% was set for labelling of all other products, in the event of adventitious or technically unavoidable contamination.

The second regulation ensures that the route taken by genetically modified products from their manufacture to their sale can be traced. A traceability monitoring system has been set up, obliging manufacturers to document every stage of cultivation and further processing of GM products.

Parliament has also tried to solve the issue of coexistence of GM crops with GM-free agriculture. As at present there are no binding rules covering the whole of Europe, the Member States can and should take precautionary measures – e.g. provisions on distances between crops – so that it is possible to cultivate GM-free products, produced conventionally or organically, without having to accept any contamination by GM products (e.g. from pollen in the air). In addition the European Commission has been asked to draw up guidelines for coexistence.

The new regulations on the sale of GM products which came into force in autumn 2003 represent an important step towards complete Europe-wide regulation of GMOs. Europe now has a comprehensive and transparent authorisation and labelling system that can only strengthen consumer trust and boost enterprise.

The EPP-ED Group pays special attention to the correct implementation of all of the new food legislation and, in particular, the controls it establishes, which are the only element capable of ensuring a high level of safety.

Advisors:
Géraldine Philibert
Harald Kandolf