Brussels, 07/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission will present this Wednesday its detailed proposals concerning the establishing of a European Food Safety Authority and for general food legislation aimed at being the two pillars of Community food safety policy announced by the 1997 White Paper on this issue. On this occasion, David Byrne, European Commissioner for Health and Consumers, invited the EU consumers to take part, this Wednesday, between 17pm and 19pm, in a live Internet discussion that will enable the Commissioner to explain how he intends to achieve the objective of making safety the first ingredient in the diet of EU citizens and to gather the opinions and suggestions by the letter on: a) the general principals and requirements of food law; b) the role and functioning of the future European Food Safety Authority; c) the food safety measures that the Commission will submit to the Parliament and Council in the form of a regulation proposal.
The debate will take place in the five official EU languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish). The questions, written in one of these languages, will have to be as short as possible (256 characters maximum) and can be sent to the following address: Chat-Byrne@cec.eu.int. for further information: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/chat/brryne1/index.en.htm.