Brussels, 23/04/2002 (Agence Europe) The two reports submitted by German Christian Democrat, Horst Schnellhardt, have been accepted by the European Parliament's Environment Health and Consumers Committee. The two regulations proposed by the European Commission for guaranteeing food-stuff safety in the Union from the "farm to the table" will go to the plenary.
The first regulation aims to clarify and make the collection of existing legislation more coherent by introducing definitions and principles that apply across the board, as well as revising the seventeen directives on general food-stuff safety, certain aspects of animal safety linked to animal bi-products and official inspections of animal-based products, into one text. The members of the Committee support the compulsory application of the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Points) throughout the foodstuff sector in order to control the critical points of the production chain. Members are thus convinced that this forms an essential element of the regulation and by introducing their amendment, they outline that if it is not yet possible to apply the HACCP system to the entire primary sector, the practices in this system should be encouraged. To guarantee that the operators take full responsibility for the safety of the food they produce, as seen in the regulation, another amendment demands food sector companies to be registered so that inspection can be carried out correctly. The Parliamentary committee is also requesting that Member States be authorised to apply specific provisions to food producer companies in areas that are restricted by certain geographical constraints or which supply local markets, as well as to production methods and traditional recipes, as long as they do not represent a risk to food safety.
The second regulation involves specific rules applicable to animal-based foodstuffs. In consideration that game should be subject to the same safety procedures as other meat, MEPs voted for an amendment demanding that game for the market be subject to inspection by the relevant authority as soon as possible after slaughter of the animal, namely, before the meat is sold.
The European Parliament will give its opinion on these two reports at their plenary session in May in Strasbourg.