Going by Health and Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, the high-level meeting hosted by the European Commission on Tuesday 26 September to learn from the Fipronil-contaminated egg scandal, in order to prevent any further such crisis via better communication among the member states, is bearing fruit.
Areas of action have been drawn up for improving the smooth transmission of information. These are partly based on a common approach set out in a letter by five member states (the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Austria – see EUROPE 11869).
Much is at stake because, over and above the initial responsibility of the fraudsters, it is the lack of communication and bad use of the EU’s early warning system for food and feed (RASFF) that underlie this crisis of confidence among consumers in the products concerned, and the wider agri-food industry.
The commissioner told press that all the member states were represented and there had been a frank discussion about past action, current action and future action by the member states and the Commission. The meeting, he said, had enabled them to identify a number of vital strategic and systematic actions at member state and EU level. He hoped to see boosted communication and a more coordinated approach to deal more effectively with future food fraud.
The participants in the meeting agreed to improve the communication of risks among the member states and the Commission in order to ensure that the public is more quickly and less bureaucratically informed.
The tangible measures put forward and agreed upon include: - the creation of a network to ensure coordination between the RASFF and the administrative cooperation system (AAC) to allow the two systems’ full potential to be used; - the possibility of a network with a single point of contact in each member state for the two systems while respecting the administrative organisation of each country; - having a network of liaison officers in each member state to allow speedier and more effective flows of information in the event of emergencies; - and building member states’ capacities (and those of the EU) through training and regular crisis management exercises for food fraud.
The commissioner told reporters that the way the liaison officers will be appointed and what their exact role will be has not yet been decided. Details will be finalised by a working group at the standing committee on plants, animals, food and feed (the PAFF committee).
The commissioner said he hoped this would be implemented and said he was confident that all these areas of action would help maintain a powerful, effective system for detecting fraud, and communicating and cooperating at all levels, as required to guarantee food safety in a vast food chain. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)