Vytenis Andriukaitis, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, called on all EU institutions on Thursday 7 February to make even greater efforts and work with all stakeholders to develop a comprehensive food and nutrition policy, during a debate organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).
"Our generation has a great duty - and responsibility - to design, develop and support the shift towards comprehensive, nutritionally aware and sustainable food policies", he said.
While recalling the various ongoing EU initiatives and measures already taken, the Commissioner stressed the need to do more to promote balanced and healthy diets, as well as the need for cross-cutting and multinational strategies to stimulate sustainable change.
"We need everyone on board, working together, towards the same goals: a balanced food system based on sustainable principles." he added.
Reacting to the intervention of Professor Olivier De Schutter, who presented a new IPES-Food report (see other news), and Professor Tim Lang, Mr Andriukaitis fully endorsed their proposal, made during the debate, to create a "Food Policy Council for the EU". In his view, this Council should be responsible not only for food policy, but also for nutritional policy.
MEP Sirpa Pietikäinen (EPP, Finland), for her part, was very critical of the current EU food system. "Everything that can potentially go wrong with our food system goes wrong", she said during the debate.
She therefore calls for a major change, based on science: “Small steps won’t fix it, we need to rethink it completely (...). To fix a broken food system we need governance change at EU, national and local level, and a science based policy." (Original version in French by Damien Genicot - intern)