On Monday 19 December, the EU Council of Ministers adopted its position at first reading on the regulation on official checks along the food chain.
The United Kingdom and Austria abstained in the vote on this text which incorporates the compromise reached among the European institutions in June of this year (see EUROPE 11575). The next and final step will be the formal adoption of the regulation at the next session of the European Parliament. The text will then be published in the Official Journal of the EU.
The regulation seeks to improve the efficiency of official checks performed by the member states along the agri-food chain so as to allow for quick responses in crisis situations, while minimising the burden for operators. To that end, it requests that such controls be performed on all operators, on a risk basis and with appropriate frequency.
Scope. The regulation applies to checks on animal health, feed, residues of veterinary medicinal products, plant health and animal by-products. It will also cover organic production, protected designations of origin, protected geographical indications and traditional specialities guaranteed, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The Council agreed to limit the official controls on GMOs deliberately released into the environment to those for the purpose of feed and food production, as well as to exclude the specific controls of pesticides application equipment. In addition, the regulation should apply when fraudulent or deceptive practices in respect to marketing standards are identified during checks.
Financing of official checks. The Council considered that no change was necessary to the scope of the mandatory fees system and that the existing fixed levels should be kept as overall the system was satisfactory. However, the Council agreed that: - member states willing to charge fees at the level of the costs incurred and not at a fixed level would have to follow harmonised rules on cost coverage and calculation methods; - member states should be obliged to enhance the transparency of the calculation, collection and setting of fees or charges.
Role of the official veterinarian. The Commission proposed a flexible approach, allowing member states to designate staff they deem to be best qualified to perform the official checks, while obliging them to provide appropriate training to all staff. The Council agreed that, to enable the efficient organisation of the official checks, member states should have discretion to identify the most appropriate staff to perform such checks provided that a high level of protection of human health, animal health and animal welfare is ensured throughout the agri-food chain and that international standards and obligations are met. However, the Council deemed it necessary that member states be required to refer to official veterinarians in certain cases, where their specific skills are necessary to ensure a sound outcome of the official controls (i.e. for live animals, meat and some other products of animal origin). In the Council’s view, this provision should not prevent member states from also using official veterinarians, including for official checks on poultry and lagomorphs, or other specifically designated persons in cases where this is not required by the regulation.
For the first time, the revised rules require member states to ensure that effective mechanisms are put in place to allow for reporting of potential or actual breaches of the regulation, including, in particular, appropriate protection for people who report such breaches against retaliation, discrimination or other types of unfair treatment.
“We want our citizens to trust our control regimes and to be reassured by the quality of what they eat”, said Gabriela Matecna, Slovak Minister for Agriculture. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)