WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/SPS/GEN/456
5 December 2003
(03-6452)
Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Original:  English
THE EC NOTIFICATION AUTHORITY AND ENQUIRY POINT FOR THE WTO
AGREEMENT ON THE APPLICATION OF SANITARY AND PHYTOSANITARY
MEASURES: OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES AND RECENT EXPERIENCE
Special Meeting of the SPS Committee on the Operation of Enquiry Points – 31 October 2003
Reflection Note
The following communication is being circulated at the request of the Delegation of the
European Communities.
_______________
Foreword
1. In document G/SPS/W/103/Rev.1, the Secretariat recirculated a questionnaire, aiming to
update information from Member on the "Operation of their Enquiry Points and National Notification
Authorities".1  In question 25 of the questionnaire, it invited Members to provide any additional
relevant information.  The European Communities (EC) Notification Authority and Enquiry Point(ECNA/EP) took the opportunity to make several el aborated statements or suggestions, issues raised
in papers prepared by Members for the Special meeting.
2  To supplement these, we have prepared this
paper to explain our operational procedures, because we believe that to improve the quality of the
exchanges with other Enquiry Points it is impor tant for them to understand how the ECNA/EC works.
To achieve this, it is first necessary to explain (1) why there is an ECNA/EP and how  the European
Commission works in coordination with its member States and (2) what are the main activities
undertaken by the ECNA/EP since January 2000.  Fu rther elaboration on the answers provided to
question 25 of the questionnaire is included at the end of this paper.
A.1 Why an EC Notification Authority and Enquiry Point, and how it works
2. By Decision 94/800/EC3, the European Council approved on behalf of the European
Community (with regard to that portion of them which falls within the competence of the European
Community) the " The Final Act Embodying the Results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade
Negotiations " and the Agreements in Annexes 1, 2 and 3;  including the "Agreement on the
Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures ("the SPS Agreement").4  This is why we refer to
                                                     
1 Submitted for the first time at a Special Meeting of the SPS Committee on Transparency Provisions,
1999.
2 G/SPS/GEN/455
3 Of 22 December 1994, concerning the conclusion on behalf of the European Community, as regards
matters within its competence, of the agreements r eached in the Uruguay Round multilateral negotiations (1986-
1994).  Official Journal No L336, 23 December 1994, pp. 1-2 .
4 Published for EC purposes in the Official Journal of the EEC, N° L336 of 23 December 1994, pp. 40-
48.G/SPS/GEN/456
Page 2
European Communities ("EC") and not to European Union ("EU").  In fact, these two concepts do not
always overlap concerning the transit of goods, but that issue is not relevant for this meeting.
Furthermore, Article 133 of the EC treaty, c onfers to the European Commission the powers to
implement the Common Commercial Policy (including International Treaties).5  Article 133 hence
falls in the area of "shared competences" between the EU member States and the EuropeanCommission.  For instance, the European Commission official attending the special meeting had
previously held a coordination meeting with the EC member States.
6
3. Another consequence for the European Commission is that, as it is responsible for the EC's
implementation of Article 13 (and as a consequence the SPS Agreement) it has to take the necessary
measures to fulfil the requirements.7  To this aim and in application of the transparency provisions
(Article 7 and Annex B) the European Commission designated a single central government authority
responsible for the implementation of the provisions concerning notification procedures, as well asone Enquiry Point responsible for the provision of answers to all reasonable questions from interested
Members, and for the provision of relevant documents.  We try to avoid using the terms "government"
and "national", instead we use "European Commission" (EC);  for instance we say the "EC
Notification Authority" and "EC Enquiry Point".  Unit SANCO/E03 (International food, veterinary
and phytosanitary questions) is responsible for the obligations of both the EC Notification Authority
(NA) and Enquiry Point (EP) (ECNA/EP).
4. It is the responsibility of the ECNA/EP to submit notices of new harmonized proposals that
will apply to the totality of the EC territory.  But it is also the responsibility of the ECNA/EP to notify
other legislation from EC member States that ma y affect trade.  Both cases are explained below.
A.2 Procedure for the notification of EC proposals
5. The European Commission prepares legislative proposals in close cooperation with the EC
member States in "Standing committees".  These standing committees are of a management nature
(Management Committee) or of a regulatory nature (Regulatory committees) and consist of
representatives from the EC member States chaired by a European Commission representative with
responsibilities in the area concerned.
6. The Standing Committee structure has been recently changed by Regulation EC No. 178/2002
which created a single new structure, the "Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal
Health" (SCFCAH) with responsibility for the en tire food supply chain, from on farm animal health
                                                     
5 The Treaty establishing the European Community (Amsterdam consolidated version) Part Three:
Community policies Treaty (Maastricht consolidated version).  JO C 340 DU 10/11/1997, p. 237 – VCL See
Annex I.
6 These meetings are called "Article 133 expert committees" or more usually "133 Committee" after
Article 133 mentioned above.  They are normally held in Brussels but can also be held in situ  and are not
excusively for WTO matters;  they apply also to other international organizations in which the EuropeanCommunities has a single voice, such as for many CODEX committees and the FAO.
7 Article 13:  "Members are fully responsible under this Agreement for the observance of all
obligations set forth herein.  Members shall formulate and implement positive measures and mechanisms insupport of the observance of the provisions of this Agreement by other than central government bodies.Members shall take such reasonable measures as may be  available to them to ensure that non-governmental
entities within their territories, as well as regional bodies in which relevant entities within their territories aremembers, comply with the relevant provisions of this Agreement.  In addition, Members shall not take measures
which have the effect of, directly or indirectly, requiring or encouraging such regional or non-governmental
entities, or local governmental bodies, to act in a manner  inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement.
Members shall ensure that they rely on the services of non-governmental entities for implementing sanitary orphytosanitary measures only if these entities comply with the provisions of this Agreement."G/SPS/GEN/456
Page 3
issues, to the product that arrives on the consumer's table.8  The SCFCAH replaces four committees:
the Standing Veterinary Committee, the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs, the Standing Committee
on Animal Nutrition and part of the Standing Committee on Plant Health (plant protection products
and pesticides residues);  the structure of the six other Standing Committees remains unchanged.9
The legislative proposals, before being submitted to the European Commission, undergo numerous
discussions at the different Standing Committees, and at a given moment are notified to the WTO.
(See flow charts 1 & 2)
A.3 Procedure for the notification of EC member States' proposals
7. In the European Union, the member States retain powers to adopt legislation, especially in
areas related to consumer health and safety.  However, as the risk exists of creating barriers between
EC member States, Directive 98/34/EC establishe s a procedure obligating the EC member States to
notify the European Commission and each other, al l draft technical regulations concerning products
before they are adopted in national law.10  This facilitates the evaluation of the regulations by the
European Commission services and also by other me mber States.  Only a few acts, cleared through
this procedure, are being notified by the ECNA/EP.  It is noteworthy to recall that once the European
Communities adopts a regulation that covers the area notified by the member States, the EC member
State repeals existing national conditions that may be in place and instates the single harmonized tradeconditions for the whole of the EC territory.
8. How the European Commission and the EC memb er States work together:  The division of
competences has been explained in document W/SPS/14 (10 May 1995).  To ensure internal
coordination within the Community, EC member States established "contact points" (and not
"Enquiry Points").  The rules are the following:
(i) Notifications of draft Community measures are made by the ECNA/EP to the WTO.
Comments and requests for information from WTO Members should be addressed to
the Community Enquiry Point.
(ii) Notifications of draft EC member State measures (other than the transposition of
Community legislation) which have been cleared by the procedure established byDirective 98/34/EC are made by the ECNA/EP.  The notification indicates the
member State in which the draft measure originates.  The procedure has been
explained in Section A.3.
(iii) Comments and requests for information from WTO Members should be addressed to
the EC Enquiry Point and to the contact point of the Member State concerned.
                                                     
8 Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2002 lays
down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishes the European Food Safety Authority andlays down procedures in matters of food safety Official Journal L 031 , 01/02/2002, pp.: 1-24.
9 The resulting seven Standing committees have responsibilities in the following areas: 1.  Food Chain
and Animal Health;  2. Propagating Material and Ornamental Plants;  3. Propagating Material and Plants of FruitGenera and Species;  4. Agricultural, Horticultural and Forestry Seeds and Plants;  5. Community Plant Variety
Rights;  6. Zootechnics; and 7. Plant Health.
10 Directive 98/34/EC  of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 June 1998 lays down a
procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations (O.J. No. L204,21/7/1998 pp. 37-48). Also known as the TRIS procedure.G/SPS/GEN/456
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B. Overview of activities
B.1 Notifications
9. As illustrated in graph 1, the European
Communities submitted 185 notifications since
January 2000, a significant increase in thenumber of notifications as compared to the initial
five years from 1995 to 1999 (total = 77).Graph 1
Number of Notifications  
0102030405060
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 
10. This increase is also evident in the amount of notifications submitted by other WTO Members
11. Why is this?  As a whole, the WTO circulated 467 notifications in 2000 compared to 360 in
the preceding year.11  A similar increase in notifications is observed from the United States, that
submitted a total of 370 notifications up to year 1999, but submitted 163 in 2000 alone.12  N e w
Zealand passed from 76 notifications during the first five years of implementation to 28 in 2000.
12. Concerning the increase of notifications from the European Communities this can be
attributed as a consequence of the BSE and dioxin crises and the resulting significant increase ofproposals for European Parliament and Council legisl ation in the area of public and animal health.
Another reason is the increased number of plant pr otection product authorizations under review.  SPS
notifications since 2002,  resulting from new EC legislations in areas are shown in Table 1.  Units
beginning with "D" form part of the Directorate for Food Safety: production and distribution chain:
those beginning with "E" belong to Directorate for Plant health, animal health and welfare and
international questions.
Table 1
SPS areas covered by EC legislation notified to the Agreement
Number of
notifications% of total
notifications
SANCO D/03: Chemical and physical risks 49 27.8
SANCO E/01: Plant health (PPP and Plant Quarantine) 46 26.1
SANCO D/02: Biological risks 30 17.0
SANCO E/02: Animal health and Welfare, zootecnics. 29 16.5
SANCO D/04: Food law and biotechnology 9 5.1
SANCO D/01: Animal Nutrition 8 4.6
SANCO E/03: International Food veterinary and phytosanitary
questions3 1.7
ENV C/04: Biotechnology and Pesticides 2 1.1
Total 178 100
                                                     
11 Source: Document Dissemination Facility of the WTO (http://www.wto.org/wto/ddf/ep/search.html).
12 Addenda and corrigenda are excluded from this calculation.G/SPS/GEN/456
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13. The split between these two dire ctorates is shown in Graph 2.
Graph 2
Directorate D Directorate E
55%45%
Directorate D Directorate E  
14. The Unit notifying the most is D/03 because it is responsible for amendments to the list of
authorized food additives (sweeteners, colours, gelling agents etc) food contact materials and food
contaminants.  Next follows Unit E/01 with 46 notices, three-quarters of which correspond to EC
legislation related to plant protection products.  The Unit responsible for biological risks, although
third in volume, has produced the largest amount of pages notified and comments received from WTO
Members because this Unit prepares proposals in the area of food hygiene, inspections, and food-borne diseases such as BSE.  The apparently low rate of notification of Unit E/02 is due to the fact of
that the European Communities follows OIE standards, so numerous proposals are not required to be
notified.
15. All texts notified by the European Communities are distributed by e-mail to a list of WTO’
Members prior to any request, although numerous countries have had to be removed from this list
following continued error messages.
B.2 EC member States 
notifications (see also paragraphs 7 
and 8)
16. The rate of growth in the quantity of
notifications from EC member States is stable at
5 to 10 per year.  The actual figures are 8, 5, 10and 10 for 2000 through to October 2003
respectively, and correspond to roughly 
1/5 of the
EC notifications.  Preparing these notifications is
very laborious and time consuming because of
the numerous consultations.  It should be recalleda
gain that when the Euro pean CommunitiesGraph 3
MS Notifications
024681012
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
covering the area notified, the EC member States cancel existing national regulations and instate
harmonized trade conditions for the whole of the EC territory.G/SPS/GEN/456
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C. Sending and receiving coments
C.1 Comments received
17. As from the end of 2000, the ECNA/EP has central ized the reception of comments from third
countries.  This has been an improvement in the operative procedures as compared to the previouspractice
13 because it allows analysis of the comments (Graph 4) as well as the rapid assessment of the
potential impact of some proposals with a view to introduce amendments to minimize the effects of
the measure.  For instance, a recent proposal relatin g to import health conditions for queen bees and
their attendants prompted comments from four coun tries that have been taken into consideration in
amending the proposal.
18. As of end 2000, the ECNA/EP kept
track of 86 comments it has received.  In thegraph can be seen that the countries belonging to
the Cairns Group have submitted around 40 per
cent of all comments.
14  Next is the United
States with 30 per cent, almost half of these
concerning animal by-products i.e. meat andbone meal, gelatin, tallow, yellow fat, etc.
affected by the new BSE related legislation.
19. The ACP and developing countries are
less active and have only sent eight comments
15;
this can be an indication of the lack of skilledstaff for analyzing EC proposals instead of lack
of impact on their exports to the European
Communities.  This 
point has been raise dGraph 4
CAIRNS
41%
USA
31%DEVELOPING
8%Others
20%
CAIRNS USA DEVELOPING Others
several times by developing countries but cannot be resolved without thorough knowledge of the
specific constraints faced by each country.
20. All comments from Members receive a reply, and this involves a high degree of coordination
between the ECNA/EP, the different European Commission services involved and the EC member
States.
C.2 Comments sent
21. The European Communities is often seen exclusively as a net importer of agricultural
products, but it is also a significant exporter.  Furthermore, the European Communities is frequentlythe object of SPS-related trade restrictions and as a consequence, numerous comments have been sent
to other WTO Members (Graph 5).  The ECNA/EP centralizes this information and has tracked
72 comments (i.e. comments sent by fax) to 17 countries.
16  The submission of comments involves a
very high degree of coordination between the European Commission and the EC member States,
                                                     
13 Comments were assigned to the competent service that handled the reply separately.
14 Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Ch ile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia,
Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Uruguay.
15 Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Kenya, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, Uganda, Zimbabwe.
16 In 2001, the ECNA/EP submitted a total of 27 comme nts to countries, specifically:  Argentina (1),
Australia (2) Brazil (2) Korea (5) Mexico (1), Bulgaria (1), New Zealand (1), Peru (1), Thailand (1), Uruguay
(1) and United States (15).  In 2002, the ECNA/EP submitted a total of 22 comments to:  Australia (2), Brazil
(3), Canada (2), China (1), Indonesia (1), Japan (1),  Korea (2), Mexico (2), New Zealand (1), Peru (1),
Philippines (1) and the United States (5).  In 2003 up to October, the ECNA/EP submitted comments to:Australia (2), Chile(1), Mexico (1), New Zeal and (4), Thailand and the United States (6).G/SPS/GEN/456
Page 8
D.2 Professional skills of the "Official in charge"
25. In moments of "mail overflow" is not easy to deal with all incoming mail on a single day so
that priorities in handling mail have to be set.  In view of the increasing trend in the number of
notifications, from around 360 per year up to nearly 700 at present, and the associated increased
number of comments and replies to be sent and received, it is necessary to identify sensitivenotifications and important messages, such as t hose conveying comments.  In view of the very
technical nature of the exchanges, and to ensure that the correct priorities are set, the official in charge
of "good management practices".  Additionally, the official in charge must have scientific or technical
background and sufficient experience on SPS measures so as to enable her or him to rapidly identify
sensitive messages.  Experience with the workin g methods of CODEX, I PPC and OIE are also of
importance.  Attempts have been made to circumvent the lack of experience by printing all incoming
mail and presenting it to "experts".  This is not a solution because it is not always easy to identify theimportance of the original message especially if the "subject" line is vaguely worded;  in the worst
case a sensitive message is identified but the period to send comments has expired.
26. In creating or redirecting messages it is important to make full use of the "subject" line;
modern systems allow up to 134 characters.  The official in charge has to select special words (from
the text) and write an "appealing" subject line.  For instance, to select a problematic food additive (orpesticide) from a notified list or to indicate the mail is for urgent comments.  Our experience is that to
ensure follow up, the subject line should be cl ear, informative and appealing to the reader.
27. Another important task for the official is to create a network of persons with the required
knowledge to handle comments, replies, examine notices, etc.  In doing so, the official must highlight
the main points and make these clear to the person asked to respond to the message.  For this theofficial has to have sufficient background to create pre-defined mail messages (templates) and to
select the appropriate people from various mailing lists according to subjects.
D.3 Simple methods
28. If possible, it is best to use simple working routines rather than sophisticated methods such as
the construction and maintenance of complicated databases that require skilled secretarial support thatmay either not be available or beyond the budget.  As way of example, the ECNA/EP receives regular
faxes, probably created by computer, that still use an old address (and incorrect fax numbers) for the
ECNA/EP.  This is a sign of a "database" that has not been updated.  In fact it is a burdensome
activity: maintaining and up-dating the different mailing-lists and fax numbers can require at least 15
minutes per day!
29. It has also been our experience that messages are best addressed to "names" instead of to
"services" or "units".  In fact, the problem of overflow exists also on the interlocutor side andimportant message can be easily pass unnoticed.
30. Finally, our experience also shows that for VERY important issues, the responsible official
must walk to the desk of the person(s) we are expecting to react and negotiate with her/him a
commitment and calendar for their response.
D.4 Databases
31. The EC experience is that the combination of a database with civil servant mobility leads to
situations in which the database becomes "the problem" instead of "the solution", because the
updating and fine tuning of the database consumes more time than the use of other methods.
32. The tasks for an Enquiry Point are handling and reassigning messages received and
identifying those which require a fast reaction (written replies, submission of questions, etc).  For this,careful reading of the mail is essential.  In the past, in putting data into the database was a compulsoryG/SPS/GEN/456
Page 9
step in mail handling that become an "end-point" in  itself, replacing the main task of correct mail
reassignment.  On the other hand, our experience shows it is best to train officials to use existing
databases in WTO, CODEX, IPPC, FAO, OIE, CEE, EC member States' web sites, etc. which provide
access to notifications, legislation and standards in such a way that any skilled person can access all
the required information.  In fact using other databases is applying synergies (i.e. mobilizingknowledge and time invested by other persons in ma intaining their databases) instead of building yet
another database with duplicate information.  The SPS Secretariat has an excellent database and very
user friendly tools to handle it;  the WTO database is "the EC database" for SPS notifications.
D.5 How many people?
33. There is no need for a very large number of officials but instead many networks.  In fact, a
single subject could require the review of lawyers, customs or trade expert, scientists, etc. The
"Official in Charge" should have the ability to build up these networks and keep track of anycommitments.  In the European Communities, we ar e lucky to have regular meetings of experts
attending Standing Committees, Scientific Committees, etc.  All of the official attending these
committees are very busy and work under pressure, so we must be skilful in adding our demands to
their agendas.  This requires a clear and very short presentation of the case with an explanation of the
contribution we expect from them.  What is best is a "pyramid" with a very large base and very fewpeople on top.
34. Another feature to think about is  continuity in the job.  If rotation is frequent, it could be a
good idea to have two other officials doing stages of 2-3 month with the multiple aims of (a) training
them in the international aspect of creating SPS standards, (b) bringing this knowledge to other
departments and (c) making possible a fast replacement of the responsible official in case of need.G/SPS/GEN/456
Page 10
Flow chart 1:
Notification of SPS measures to the WTO
Notification preparation in cooperation with  the responsible service and in consultation
with other services and with EC member States' Contact Points
The responsible Unit prepares  the notification according 
to WTO rules  :(G/SPS/7 Rev.2 "Recommended notification 
procedures") and provides 3 copies (EN/FR/SP) of the legal 
draft.
EEC Notification Authority [SANCO/E/03] 
reviews the notification and amends it, if necessary 
DG TRADE, 
ENTR, ENV EC member States' contact 
points - G/SPS/N/ENQ/15 
NO 
COMMENTSCOMMENTS 
Other than spelling 
mistakes, lapses, 
t
SANCO/E/03  sends 
the notification to 
the WTO SecretariatWTO Secretariat 
sends it to WTO 
Members 
(Comment period 
starts) G/SPS/GEN/456
Page 11
__________Flow chart 2:
Notifications of SPS measures to the WTO - Timing for notifications and
handling of comments
 
Step 1  
"In principle" Agreement in the Standing Committee? 
YES NO 
Step 2 
Prepare notification 
(This is D1)  
See previous chart STOP 
& back 
to Step 1
3rd Country 
Comments to Standing 
Committee? YESIs the notified text 
being modified at 
final vote? 
NO 
Start written procedure 
with recommended 
date of adoption 
(D1 + 59) NO
YES 
Prepare Addendum 
to notification