Strasbourg, 25/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - By adopting, with 461 votes for, 12 against and 9 abstentions, the report by the British Conservative John Bovis relating to the White Paper on food safety, the European Parliament supports the move by the European Commission aiming to grant the priority to the safety of all food products, including those aimed a animal feed, as well as factors of agricultural production such as fertiliser and food hygiene products. It invites the Commission, during the preparation of the 6th Framework programme, to reinforce and adapt the role of research in the food safety sector and to extend it to the consumers concerns, in both matters of safety as well as the quality of products. In this field, the Joint research centre should become one of the laboratories of reference. The Parliament also calls on the Commission to implement a strategy aiming to place accession candidate countries in the position of conforming with the highest standards in terms of food safety.
At the same time the Parliament brings its support to the creation of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), based on the principals of scientific integrity and excellence, independence, responsibility, transparency and intelligibility. In this framework, it feels that it will be necessary to use and, if need be, develop the existing European Union institutes, such as the Institute for health and consumption of the JRC in Ispra. It also asserts that the place of location for the EFSA should respect the following criteria: - it will have to benefit from a good reputation in terms of food safety, so that the Authority may have a certain credibility in the eyes of more than 300 million European consumers; - it will not form a barrier to the independence and integrity of the Authority; - it should offer a scientific infrastructure and high quality installations in the field of food safety; - its access should be simple, both in terms of transport and equipment in information technology. EUROPE recalls that the three cities are Parma, Barcelona and Helsinki.
The Parliament feels that the work of the EFSA must mainly cover: the assessment of risks and the formulation of scientific opinions, the collection and analysis of scientific facts, the monitoring of developments relating to food safety, including fresh water safety. It should also promote the creation of a network and close cooperation between national food safety agencies. The Parliament feels that is it crucial that the Authority carry out its work in close cooperation with the European Agency for the evaluation of medicinal products and the Food and Veterinary Office. The nomination to the position of director for the Authority should be subordinate to a hearing of the selected candidate before the competent EP committee that will provide its opinion of which the European Commission's final decision will have to take into account. Furthermore, the Parliament insists on the need to continue to authorise the use of preparations and traditional methods, for which neither science not experience have shown negative effects on food safety (482 in favour, 0 against and 10 abstentions).