A working group set up by the environment, public health and food safety (ENVI) committee with representation from across Parliament’s political groups will champion efforts for greater format harmonisation of safety data held by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The working group, which is chaired by UK MEP Julie Girling (ECR) held its constitutive meeting on 24 January, with representatives of the three Agencies in attendance. It will meet quarterly.
“Everyone here today is committed to science-based policymaking and I think that this working group could be a great platform for devising and championing such policies in the future”, said Girling.
The first meeting focused on how enhanced cooperation on data issues could lead to a reduction in cost and bureaucracy, better promotion of non-animal methods, greater public transparency and a level playing field for industry. The next meeting is scheduled for early spring. For the moment, the EMA will not participate actively in the group because of its imminent relocation (see other article. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)