Playing Politics With Our Food: The European Union's Approach to Food Safety Regulations.

<<This post is a continuation of previous posts. To read the introduction, click here.>>

The mission behind the EU food legislation includes the protection of health, the protection of consumer interests, risk assessment and management, and a precautionary principle.[1] Over the last 15 years, the EU legislative task has attempted to undertake preventative instead of corrective measures. Although this can be attested to the fact the EU is based on a civil law legal systems, which is typically risk adverse, a central reason behind why the EU is more preventative is because the EU has faced a number of food safety crises. The most significant food safety failure involved a massive outbreak of bovine spongiform encepholapathy (BSE) also known as mad cow disease, which occurred in the mid 90s.[2] The EU’s failure to recognize the health hazards of BSE undermined public trust in EU food safety regulations and the scientific expertise on which they were based, significantly increasing public awareness of food safety issues especially regarding GMOs.[3]

In order to reinstate some consumer trust in food legislation, the EU developed a General Food Law, Food Sanitation Law and more than 20 other food safety regulations to coordinate the food safety regulatory system.[4] In the early 2000s, the EU enacted both the white papers and the General Food Law.[5] The white paper laid down the key principles for governing food law in the EU, calling for a wide range of measures to improve the food safety laws, while the General Food Law set out the general principles, responsibilities, obligation, and requirements for member states.[6] The EU white paper on food safety points out that the main objective of the EU food law is food quality safety, which is based on controlling the whole process starting from animal husbandry, health and health care down to food additives, packaging, feed, etc. This movement is known as “from farm to table.”[7]

The General Food Law also created the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which was mandated to provide independent “scientific advice and scientific and technical support” serving “as the scientific basis for the drafting and adoption of Community measures.”[8] The main forms of food legislation are EU directives and EU Regulations. Directives must be given legal effect by the promulgation of national legislation in each Member country, but only within a limited time.[9] In contrast, a Regulation takes immediate force in all member states.[10] In terms of imports, the EU demands for EU-equivalent food safety assurances.[11] The EU ensures the compliance of these supplies by carrying out a series of inspections of exporting countries’ food safety systems.[12] The inspections exhaustively examine the legal framework for the country’s food safety controls and the efficacy of the measures.[13] By permitting these audits and annually submitting details of monitoring programs, outside countries can remain on lists of countries approved to export stipulation commodities on the EU.

Do you think China's Food Regulations have the same muster as the EU's? To compare EU's food safety with that of China, click here.

[1] See generally, Commission Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, 2002 O.J. (L31)

[2] Caroline Smith DeWaal & Leora Vegosen, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy: The Importance of Precautionary Measures to Protect the Food Supply, 58 FOOD & DRUG L.J. 537, 540 (2003). See also, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/bse.html. Over 137 British citizens have died from a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) from eating beef infected with BSE. (N J Andrews, et al, Deaths from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the UK, research letters (2003)). The number of deaths from vCJD are based on December 1, 2003 figures reported by the National CJD Surveillance Unit website (http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk).

[3] Id; See also, Erik Millstone, "Comment and Analysis," Financial Times October 6, 2000, p. 19 claiming that the BSE scandal “represents the biggest failure in UK public policy…”)

[4] Id. at 545.

[5] See generally Parliament & Council Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety, art. 58, 2002 O.J. (L31) 11, available at http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2002/l_031/l_ 03120020201en00010024.pdf.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id. at Art. 22(2) and (6)

[9] Id.

[10] Id.

[11] Winn S. Collins, The Commission's Delegation Dilemma: Is the European Food Safety Authority an Independent or an Accountable Agency?, 10 U.C. Davis J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 277, 278 (2004).

[12] Id.

[13] Id.

#europeanunion #europeanfoodsafetyauthority