Dow Jones | January 12, 2000 | By Geoff Winestock, Staff Reporter
BRUSSELS - The European Commission published its blueprint for a new European Food Authority, drawing a mixed reaction from the food industry, which said the move was useful but mostly symbolic.
The white paper on food safety released Wednesday is designed to rebuild consumer confidence in European regulators after the scares over mad-cow disease in British beef and dioxin-contaminated animal feed in Belgium.
It is also eagerly awaited by Europe's 600 billion euros food and drink sector, which has been caught in a contradictory web of national and EU regulation of everything from genetically modified organisms to vitamins in breakfast cereal.
While commission President Romano Prodi initially talked of a European equivalent to the powerful U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the current proposal, due to be up and running by 2002, is something quite different.
Unlike the FDA, the new agency won't have any regulatory or judicial power. Health and Consumer Affairs Commissioner David Byrne, who presented the white paper, said the model was for Europe's politicians to retain responsibility for implementing the agency's scientific advice. "Scientists must do science and policy makers make the laws," he said.
The hope is, however, that the new body will establish a reputation for greater independence and less political interference than the current system. The half-dozen standing scientific committees that give the commission advice on food safety are part-time operations, often working to an agenda set by politicians and unable to communicate directly with the public.
"The whole problem with the current system is that the scientific agenda is set by the politicians in the commission and the council," said a Danish diplomat, who asked not to be named.
The new authority will have a full-time staff answering to a board of directors and a chief executive appointed for a fixed term. While it won't be directly responsible for carrying out policy, it will have the right to make recommendations and issue urgent health warnings. "I cannot imagine a situation where we did not act on that advice," said Mr. Byrne. Raymond Destin, director general of the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU, welcomed the white paper on food safety as a "symbol" and a "milestone," but said a lot about it was still unclear.
The new agency is supposed to "coordinate" scientific opinion across the EU, avoiding disputes like the current court battle between France and the commission over the safety of British beef. But Mr. Destin said the authority will have no power to dictate policy to the 15 member states.
Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
