Strasbourg, 12/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption on Tuesday in Strasbourg (491 for, 5 against and 21 abstentions) of the report by British Labour member Phillip Whitehead on the creation of the European Food Authority (EFA), the European Parliament amended the Commission proposal concerning not only the role, the composition and the financing of this agency but also the breakdown of powers on the assessment, notification and management of risk when there are food crises. Commissioner David Byrne rejected half of the 200 amendments adopted by the EP.
MEPs mainly adopted an amendment that aims to replace the name chosen by the Commission for this agency, giving preference to that of "European Food Safety Authority" (EFSA/AESA), which the Commission does not accept. The Commission is sticking to its proposal: European Food Authority. According to the EP, the trinomial assessment, communication and management of risks cannot be as easily fragmented as the Commission proposal suggests. In particular, risk assessment is a duty for the AESA, and risk management at the end of the day comes under the Commission. The Commission hopes that the future authority will be responsible for the early warning systems to which one must resort, for example, in the case of contamination or illegal movements of food products. MEPs, however, felt that the daily management of the authority should be incumbent upon the Commission. The Parliament, on the other hand, considers that there should not be more than twelve members on the board of administrators (instead of sixteen in the initial proposal), two of which should come from the food industry and two should represent consumers. They should be proposed by the Commission after a tendering procedure open to candidatures, it specifies. In order to guarantee the future authority remains independent, MEPs consider that the Member States should not have a representative on the board of directors.
MEPs consider the tasks of the AESA should also include animal health and welfare, the health and growing of plants, food and matters concerning genetically modified organisms and the labelling of foodstuffs. The criteria that must prevail for attribution of the seat of the agency must include the following, states the EP: - long tradition in food safety matters; - good scientific infrastructure and competence in the field of food safety; - and accessibility from the point of view of communications. We recall that the European Food Authority will be an "autonomous" entity (that is not tributary to the Commission's infrastructures), which will begin to exercise its responsibilities during the year 2002 and which will be funded by Community funds from the Community budget (EUR 9 million in 2002, EUR 44 million after three years and EUR 67.2 million after five years, when the Authority will be fully operational). The proposal envisages for a later stage the possibility of levies, which the Parliament refuses.
During the debate, rapporteur Phillip Whitehead justified the change in the name of the authority by the need to clarify its powers and to confer more ambitious tasks on it such as hygiene, nutrition, or traditional production methods. He highlighted certain key points of his report: - the need for the best scientific skills to be mobilised "in the most effective and transparent way possible", in cooperation with national food agencies; - the responsibility for the early warning system to first of all be incumbent upon the Commission; - the financing of this authority must be established in the context of the Community's general budget. The budget proposed for the third year of operation amounts to EUR 44,400,000 - less than one third of the British Food Standards Agency (FSA) budget in the beginning, and less also than the current budget of the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA), which will certainly rule out certain ambitions … "The creation of this agency must not result in weakening legal instruments", warned Evelyne Gebhardt (Social-Democrat, Germany). German Social Democrat Wilfried Kuckelkorn said he did not see how the Community planned to find the funds for making this agency function "without reducing spending under Heading 3 (internal policies) or revising the financial perspectives". He also suggested (which was rejected by the parliamentary committee during the adoption of the draft report) that other sources of funding be found (levying of taxes, financial participation of the Member State chosen for providing the land for the premises …). As Commissioner Byrne was to do a little later, Maria del Pilar Ayuso Gonzales (Partido Popular, Spain) stressed that, when a substantive conflict on scientific opinions is identified, it is the analysis made by the authority that must be the basis for a decision on risk management.
"Food legislation must take account of the specific nature of national products and the special nature of SMEs also needs taking into account to help them comply with the new rules regarding food safety and hygiene", stressed Christos Folias (Greek, Nea Demokratia). For Mikko Pesala (Finnish, Liberal Group), aquaculture products from third countries, that could be exposed to medicines, chemical products or antibiotics, must be covered by the food legislation. Karl Erik Olsson (Swedish, Liberal Group) placed emphasis on the importance of improving criminal sanctions in case on non-compliance with food legislation. Johannes Blokland (Dutch, EDD) deplored the fact that the race for the allocation of the headquarters for this authority had more to do with prestige. On this last point, Marco Cappato (Italian, Bonino list) denounced what he called a strategy of "bartering" - the fact of wanting to allocate the headquarters to the country with the fewest cases pending before the Court of Justice.
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