EN Official Journal of the European Union C 100/60

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on Health security of agricultural and food imports

2009/C 100/10

By letter of 3 July 2008, the French presidency decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under Article 262 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on

Health security of agricultural and food imports (exploratory opinion).

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 8 October 2008. The rapporteur was Mr BROS.

At its 448th plenary session, held on 21, 22 and 23 October 2008 (meeting of 22 October), the European Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 92 votes to 1, with 4 abstentions.

1. Conclusions and recommendations

1.1. Following a number of serious food crises, the European Union has adopted a sophisticated safety mechanism, aimed at ensuring a high level of consumer health protection and of animal and plant health. Against a background of increasing global trade in farm and food produce, however, threats to health are on the rise and health crises linked to imports remain common in the EU. These crises jeopardise human, animal and plant health and entail substantial costs for society as a whole.

1.2. The EESC welcomes the memorandum endorsed by 15 Member States at the Agriculture Council of June 2008, entitled ‘Food, feed, animal and plant imports: safety and compliance with Community rules’ (1). Through this opinion, the Committee would like to contribute to the debate on the scope for improving the European safety mechanism. The WTO provides a legal framework that is essential to preventing unjustified barriers to trade. The EESC is committed to complying with these rules but also wishes to propose a number of adjustments.

1.3. The Committee considers the differences in Member States’ import inspection practices to be highly damaging and recommends that these practices be harmonised as swiftly as possible.

1.4. Noting that a large number of effective health management measures for imports apply only to animal products, the EESC considers that some of these measures should be extended to cover plant products too. This would help to improve monitoring of the risk of pesticide residues, contamination by toxic agents or plant diseases. In particular, the EESC recommends that the number of inspections for plant products be increased, and that a list of approved establishments be drawn up for imports and that they undergo systematic checks at the point of entry.

1.5. In the Committee's view, decisions on import measures should be based as far as possible on objective data. The Committee would, therefore, like to see the principles of risk analysis systematically applied and the appropriate levels of protection more clearly defined. These levels are provided for in the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures.

1.6. Socio-economic factors, such as the economic impact of a decision or its social acceptability, should be assessed independently and as rigorously as the health risk. A number of countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, already have expert socio-economic units within their food safety agencies. The EESC proposes that the Commission consider whether it would be useful to create an independent socio-economic assessment agency.

1.7. The Committee considers that the system of traceability, which underpins the European food safety model and which provides information on foodstuffs ‘from farm to table’, should also apply to products from third countries. This issue should be a priority in bilateral negotiations and in technical assistance programmes in the least developed countries.

1.8. The EESC wishes to draw attention to the difficulties faced by producers from the least developed countries in applying European health standards. It would like to see the provision of technical assistance for trade, technology transfers and support for setting up traceability and early-warning systems in those countries.

1.9. Requirements for imported farm and food products are less stringent than those imposed on products from within the European Union, with regard to traceability, animal welfare and, more broadly, environmental standards. Given that current international trade rules do not provide sufficient opportunity to raise these issues that are priorities for the EU, the EESC very much hopes that the Commission will put forward a strategy to protect these European collective preferences. The Committee considers that the EU should take the lead in calling for other legitimate factors to be taken into account in international trade. To achieve this, the EU should defend its collective preferences, argue the case of ‘other legitimate factors’ in international bodies and revive the debate on the link between the WTO and the other international agreements.

2. General comments

2.1. Following the health crises that have beset the EU, the European Commission carried out a major overhaul of food legislation. A new, highly elaborate institutional and legislative framework was established, representing genuine progress.

2.2. Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 states that ‘The Community has chosen a high level of health protection’ and adds that this legislation is applied ‘in a non-discriminatory manner whether food or feed is traded on the internal market or internationally’ (2).

2.3. The European model is based on a number of sound principles:

— traceability ‘from farm to table’, which means the ability to trace a food, through all stages of production, processing and distribution (3),

— a distinction between risk assessment and risk management,

— the legal responsibility of all stakeholders in the food-production chain,

— an effective early-warning system.

2.4. Health crises linked to imported products are, however, still a common occurrence. In recent years, the EU has seen pesticide residues in imported fruit, aflatoxins in nuts and maize, residues of veterinary medicines in animal products, foot-and-mouth disease, etc. In 2007, 314 of the warnings issued by the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), that is, 32 % of all warnings, concerned products from third countries (4). These recurring crises highlight a number of problems that need to be addressed.

2.5. Health crises linked to imports represent a threat to the safety of European consumers and are also costly to society as a whole. When an alert is issued, the task of warning the public or withdrawing a food product from the market imposes a considerable burden on the businesses concerned. Similarly, safety measures aimed at eradicating an animal or plant disease from a given area, e.g. the obligation to vaccinate herds or to use insecticides in an entire region, have major impacts that can be long-lasting.

3. Better anticipation of health risks

3.1. To ensure that these health crises occur less frequently, health risks can be anticipated more effectively.

3.2. The process of harmonising import inspection practices at the Community level is under way and should be a priority. The differences in Member States’ import inspection practices are highly damaging. Commercial operators should not be able to decide to bring their goods onto the single market through a country whose inspections are known to be less stringent. It has been reported, for example, that citrus fruit importers tend to avoid Spanish ports, because these have the laboratories that are most highly specialised in the field of diseases or residues affecting plants of this type.

3.3. Today, many import safety measures apply only to livestock and to animal products. Some risks, such as pesticide residues, physical or chemical contamination by carcinogenic or toxic agents (such as heavy metals, biotoxins, dyes, etc.) or plant diseases, should be more closely monitored. Effective measures should thus be extended to cover plant products.

3.4. First of all, inspections could be stepped up for certain categories of plant product. Indeed, of the Food and Veterinary Office's planned inspections for 2008, only one in three concerns plant products.

3.5. Furthermore, a list of approved countries and establishments should be drawn up for imports of plant products, as applies to some fifteen categories of animal products.

3.6. Plant product imports should also be subject to systematic inspections from the initial point of entry onwards, which is not the current situation. Where animal products are concerned, the BIPs (Border Inspection Posts) have proven their effectiveness. Furthermore, cooperation between state monitoring bodies and private inspectors of importers should be improved. Increasingly, importers are allowing analysis to be carried out even at production sites. The food supervisory authority should have access to these results.

3.7. Lastly the TRACES (TRAde Control and Expert System) database, which enables information on trade and imports in livestock and animal products to be recorded and exchanged, could be extended to cover the field of plant health, operating in conjunction with the EUROPHYT system.

4. Better application of the principles of risk analysis

4.1. The international organisations recognised by the WTO define the principles of risk analysis as a three-stage process; risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. The reform of European food legislation was an initial step towards applying risk analysis. The creation of the EFSA helps to make a distinction between risk assessment and risk management, which is crucial. Based on the available scientific evidence and ‘undertaken in an independent, objective and transparent manner’ (5), the risk assessment carried out by the EFSA enables the risk manager, in other words the Commission or the Member States, to decide on the measures that are needed.

4.2. Nevertheless, the import measures decided on by the Commission, whether these are to suspend an import flow or to allow it to continue, are sometimes misunderstood both within the EU and in the third countries concerned. The spirited discussions on the subject of imported American chlorinated chicken or Brazilian beef are recent examples of this development. In some cases, the Commission is accused of prioritising commercial interests, at the expense of consumers. In the Committee's view, decisions on import measures should be more clearly based on objective data.

4.3. Frequently, however, there are conflicts over objectives, which have to be weighed up. Any deliberations about different objectives must be made transparent for the consumer.

4.4. The EESC calls on the Commission to be more systematic in implementing the principles of risk analysis and to provide the EFSA with the resources it needs to establish a methodology for this purpose.

4.5. Article 5.7 of the SPS Agreement authorises the use of provisional measures in cases where scientific evidence as to the innocuousness of a product or procedure is insufficient. International rules, therefore, recognise the precautionary principle as defined in Community law. The SPS agreement also allows for the application of standards more stringent than those existing at international level, provided that these establish an ‘appropriate level of protection’. The EU should strive to provide a better definition of its own appropriate levels of protection, to ensure that it can refer to these when carrying out a risk analysis.

4.6. Furthermore, as the regulation states, ‘scientific risk assessment alone cannot, in some cases, provide all the information on which a risk management decision should be based, and (…) other factors relevant to the matter under consideration should legitimately be taken into account (…)’ (6). These factors, which are also acknowledged by the SPS agreement, could involve a decision's economic impact, social acceptability or cost-benefit ratio. They are today evaluated in Commission impact studies or in consultations.

4.7. Socio-economic factors should, however, also be assessed in an objective and independent manner, with the same scientific rigour as an assessment of the health risk, and should call on the assistance of experts in fields such as economics, sociology and law. Different countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, already have expert socio-economic units within their food safety agencies (7). The EESC would like the Commission to consider whether it would be useful to create an independent agency providing socio-economic expertise.

5. The problem of different requirements for imported products

5.1. The requirements for imported farm and food products are, in a number of areas, less strict than for products from within the EU. This does not apply to the private standards that the industry imposes on all of its suppliers, but it is true of certain regulatory requirements. The obligation to trace animals from birth or to meet conditions guaranteeing animal welfare or the ban on using certain pesticides, for example, do not apply to products from third countries.

5.2. A European regulation, such as the regulation on food safety, whether or not one considers it to be justified, reflects the collective preference of the EU. The institutional process that led to this regulation, involving debates in the European Parliament, in the Council and with civil society, is supposed to be the legitimate expression of the European people's choice. The measures imposed on producers are the outcome of this collective choice and apply to everyone in the EU. Because these measures are not imposed on producers from third countries, however, both products that have met these requirements and those that have not find their way onto the single market.

5.3. This problem, which also arises in other areas, such as environmental standards, social rights, etc., is unacceptable to consumers. Consumers might, unawares, buy products that do not reflect the choices made by the European public. For example, consumers can today legally buy third-country oranges that have been treated with Lebaicid — a powerful insecticide, the active agent in which is Fention. Use of this product, however, has been banned in the EU for several years for environmental reasons. The collective preferences of the European public are thus being abused to some extent and consumers deceived.

5.4. European standards that do not apply to imported products are also a source of distorted competition affecting European consumers. The French Livestock-breeders’ Institute has attempted to calculate some of these extra costs. With regard to traceability, for example, considerable efforts have been made in Europe to implement animal identification. This investment accounts, in cattle breeding, for EUR 0,4 per 100 kg of carcass, or EUR 32 million for the EU-25. Where animal welfare is concerned, the obligation to maintain shared stalls for calves intended for slaughter represents a cost of EUR 0,4 per 100 kg of carcass, or EUR 31 million for the EU-25.

6. The impact of European standards on developing countries

6.1. The EU is the main importer of food products from developing countries, due in particular to the substantial trade concessions that have been granted in the past. UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) regularly warns about the effects of European health standards on producers and businesses in the least developed countries.

6.2. The EU must not compromise on health security. Nevertheless, the EESC, which is fully aware of the importance of the issue, wishes to encourage technical support, dialogue and cooperation with the EU's most vulnerable trading partners. The Committee also urges the Commission to build on its initiative to support the establishment of traceability and early warning systems in the developing countries.

7. The principle of equivalence and traceability

7.1. The SPS and TBTs (Technical Barriers to Trade agreements) provide WTO members with a legal framework that is crucial to prevent unjustified import restrictions and to ensure greater transparency in market access conditions.

7.2. Community law states that imported food must comply with European food legislation, ‘or conditions recognised by the Community to be at least equivalent thereto’ (8). The EESC wishes to draw attention to the danger of the EU giving too broad an interpretation to the principle of equivalence, which is recognised in international regulations.

7.3. In Europe, food traceability underpins the health security model. This process is implemented ‘from (…) the primary production of a food, up to (…) sale or supply to the final consumer’ (from farm to table), because ‘each element may have a potential impact on food safety’ (9). For most imported products, however, traceability is required only from the exporter onwards. Despite the role that the private sector could play here, the EESC doubts that the practices in certain third countries could be considered to be ‘equivalent’ in terms of safety. The Committee calls for a proactive approach in the field of traceability, making the issue a priority in bilateral negotiations and in technical assistance to the least developed countries.

8. Other legitimate factors and developments in international law

8.1. The texts that make up GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and the different WTO agreements provide for account to be taken of ‘other legitimate factors’, in addition to safety factors, when regulating international trade. International law has nevertheless been slow to catch up in this area. The EU's decisions are not always justifiable, however, from the strictly health-related point of view. In the case of chlorinated chicken, for example, the Commission has struggled to prove that the US practice of putting poultry through a decontamination bath containing chlorinated water could damage the health of European consumers. It has to be accepted that perception of food quality differs between the two continents. In another field, the decision to ban the import of seal pelts is not based on grounds of health either, but of animal welfare. A heated international debate is currently taking place on whether these measures are compatible with WTO rules.

8.2. The case-law of the Dispute Settlement Body is showing some positive signs, however. In the turtle/shrimp case, for example, which pitted the United States against Malaysia, the Panel's experts found in favour of the former, taking the view that the ban on shrimp imports was justified in light of the International Convention on the Protection of Biodiversity. Malaysian fishermen were obliged to change fishing techniques to ensure they would no longer catch the turtles protected by the convention referred to above. Clarifying the links between WTO rules and other international agreements is another issue of great interest at the current time.

8.3. The EU should play a leading role in discussions of these matters. To achieve this, it should defend its collective preferences, argue the case of ‘other legitimate factors’ in international bodies and revive discussions on the link between the WTO and other international agreements. Furthermore, research into methods for ensuring that collective preferences and legitimate factors are objective should be promoted, to help ensure that they are recognised internationally.

9. Consumer information

9.1. European consumers increasingly want to be better informed about the conditions in which their food is produced. The private sector has launched a number of initiatives to meet this desire. Further, different ideas are currently being discussed, such as an EU label or an animal welfare label. It might be useful to propose that an international organisation provide consumers with independent information concerning production methods in the different countries. The task of this independent information centre should also be to provide information within the framework of a global early warning system, which is still to be created.

9.2. Consumer information cannot be the only response, however, to the issues raised in this report. For processed products, of which food makes increasing use, labels detailing the origin are becoming too complex, for businesses and consumers alike. The public authorities, therefore, have a duty to ensure that all products on the internal market reflect the choice of the European public. Consumers do not expect these choices to be sacrificed in political processes (e.g. transatlantic dialogue), which merely serve the goal of raising a profile or creating a favourable climate with individual trading partners.

Brussels, 22 October 2008. The President of the European Economic and Social Committee Mario SEPI

(1) Council Doc. 10698/08.

(2) Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, recital 8.

(3) Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, Article 3.

(4) RASFF Annual Report 2007.

(5) Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, Article 6.

(6) Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, recital 19.

(7) OECD 2003, ‘Taking account of the socio-economic aspects of food safety: a study of the innovative measures adopted by certain countries’.

(8) Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, Article 11.

(9) Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, Article 3.16 and recital 12.