Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the 'Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee on food, veterinary and plant health control and inspection'
Date: 1998-05-27
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: consumer protection, food inspection, health policy, plant health control, veterinary inspection

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3.2.5.5. Management of water resources by river
basin authorities, as promoted by the framework water
directive, could for example serve as a powerful tool for
a new approach to area management.

better environmental management by companies, which
includes a continuous training and upskilling element
for relevant workers, should also be brought to bear on
this area.

3.2.6. E d u c a t i o n a l

v o c a t i o n a l
a n d
t r a i n i n g a n d i n f o r m a t i o n i n t h e
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s e c t o r

3.2.6.1.
This is the sector where the greatest efforts
should be made, to prepare workers for new types
of employment, to steer young people towards new
occupations and new skills and to train public officials,
intermediary and professional organizations and small-
business men in new technologies and environmentally-
friendly management.

In addition to educational and vocational
3.2.6.2.
training facilities, the Eco-audit system for promoting

Associations

3.2.6.3.
and socio-economic orga-
nizations can play a major multiplier role in the education
and training sector.

3.2.7. R e s e a r c h a n d d e v e l o p m e n t

The new framework programme should back
3.2.7.1.
together with new
technologies,
R&D for ‘clean’,
approaches to production methods and products which
are compatible with sustainable growth and consump-
tion. Europe’s competitiveness and the ensuing growth
depend on the ability to meet the challenges of environ-
mental protection and to enhance and conserve natural
resources.

Brussels, 28 May 1998.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Tom JENKINS

Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Communication from the Commission
to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee on food,
veterinary and plant health control and inspection’

(98/C 235/02)

On 30 January 1998 the European Commission decided to consult the Economic and Social
Committee, under Article 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the
above-mentioned communication.

The Section for Protection of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Affairs, which
was instructed to prepare the Committee’s work on this matter, adopted its opinion on 5 May
1998. The rapporteur was Mr Nielsen, with Mr Colombo and Mr Verhaeghe acting as
co-rapporteurs.

At its 355th plenary session on 27 and 28 May 1998 (meeting of 27 May) the Economic and
Social Committee adopted the following opinion with 81 votes in favour and 3 abstentions.

1.

Introduction

1.1.
In this Communication, which follows on the
Communication on consumer health and food safety
of April 1997 (1), the Commission gives an overview of the
measures adopted in connection with the introduction of
the Commission’s food, veterinary and plant health
control services.

In addition, the Commission gives details of
1.2.
plans for future control activities, which are based on a
food safety study and recommendations by its Inspection
General Services (IGS) (IGS report) (2).

(1) COM(97) 183, 30.4.1997.

(2) Inspection General Services (IGS) study of 13 October 1997

on food safety control bodies.

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1.3.
In its 1996 opinion, the ESC was not convinced
that the existing office should be converted into an
agency (1). In the light inter alia of this ESC opinion, the
Commission has abandoned its proposal to set up a
veterinary and plant health agency (2) and has come
to the conclusion that responsibility for control and
inspection should continue to be exercised (under the
general authority of the Commission) by the Food and
Veterinary Office (FVO) in Ireland, which is attached
to DG XXIV.

1.4.
The Commission still believes that food safety
and protection of consumers’ health can best be achieved
through a working partnership between the food indus-
try, the official control services at national level and
the Commission, operating within the framework of
effective legislation. The food industry needs to develop
monitoring and self-policing systems to ensure that food
at all stages of the production chain complies with EU
rules. The national authorities should continue to
exercise central authority and apply coordinated control
programmes and audit-based control systems. The
Commission also wishes to monitor the national control
authorities’ efficiency by means of such audit-based
control systems.

2. General comments

2.1.
The ESC wholeheartedly supports the Com-
mission’s efforts to give greater priority to consumers’
health and food safety and is able to endorse the proposed
shape of future control and inspection activities, subject
to the following reservations and recommendations.

2.2.
As mentioned below, it is of vital importance
that the rules governing control activities as well as the
framing of constructive and apposite procedures for
cooperation between the Food and Veterinary Office
and other inter-institutional or national bodies ensure
that optimum use is made of the resources made available
by the Commission and the Member States for control
and inspection purposes. In this connection, control
procedures must be streamlined as far as possible and
close coordination is essential. A system that looks good
on paper but is of no practical use could result in redtape
and inefficiency, with a loss of support and trust. In this
respect, the Committee welcomes any initiative directed
towards coordination of national bodies active in this
field.

2.3.
According to the Commission, in 1997 there
were 76 Council directives containing provisions on
Commission monitoring or control of enforcement in
Member States or third countries (57 in the veterinary
sector, 16 on plant health and 3 on official control of
food and food hygiene) (3).

1.5. Here the Commission endorses the IGS report’s
recommendations regarding the expansion of control,
the scope for the common control services to work
impartially and objectively, and a clearly defined legal
and official status specifying the control services’ mis-
sion, the functions and responsibilities of personnel,
procedures, working methods, etc.

Regardless of the need to press ahead with
2.4.
simplifying the rules, additional rules and measures will
no doubt have to be adopted in the years to come for
certain components of the food, veterinary and plant
health sector. Increasing problems e.g. in the field of
microbiology can be expected to necessitate further
expansion of EU legislation.

1.6.
The concept of ‘farmyard to table control’
presupposes small, multidisciplinary inspection teams
able to cover all aspects of the production chain, from
animal feed processors through health and welfare
standards on farms, markets and during transport, to
the processing, storage, distribution and retail sale of
the food concerned. In addition, it is proposed to set
up a small number of emergency teams to respond
immediately to public health, or animal and plant health
crises in the EU.

Further, the accession of the central and eastern
2.5.
European countries to the EU, with the addition of
new borders and neighbouring countries, will per se
substantially boost the need for, and scope of, the
Commission’s control and inspection activities, particu-
larly in the veterinary sector. Here it is important
that the applicant countries should incorporate EU
regulations promptly so that any exemptions applicable
during a transitional period are as shortlived as possible.

2.6.
It is therefore vital for the EU to take energetic
and efficient control and inspection measures to ensure
enforcement of the regulations and achieve its goal of
high safety and health standards in the sphere of food,
and plant health. Effective, uniform
veterinary

(1) ESC Opinion of 27 November 1996 on the establishment
of a veterinary and plant health agency — OJ C 66,
3.3.1997, p. 43.

(2) COM(96) 223; OJ C 239, 17.8.1996, p. 9.

(3) COM(97) 183 Annex II.

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enforcement of the relevant provisions, combined with
harmonized rules for payment of control fees, is also a
sine qua non in guaranteeing smooth operation of the
single market and fair terms of competition. The
Committee welcomes the Edinburgh Forum on enforce-
ment of consumer-protection legislation (11-12 June
1998) which sets a precedent for cooperation and calls
for follow-up in the food sector with regular meetings
between the Member States’ food enforcement officers
in order to ensure consistency.

2.10.
The ESC also supports the Commission’s idea
of assessing the need for additional national control of
safety standards for non-animal foodstuffs (e.g. fruit
and vegetables) and, if need be, introducing further
national or Community measures. However, the decisive
factor must be the existence of such a need to avoid
merely increasing the cost of control without sufficient
justification.

2.7.
In this connection, the ESC is able to endorse the
Commission’s proposals on framing guidelines to ensure
uniform application and coordinated national control
programmes encompassing the entire food production
chain and the introduction of audit-based control
systems.

The ESC supports the idea of public access to
2.8.
information. As the Commission proposes, the Office’s
working methods should be open to public scrutiny and
arrangements should also be made for an effective
internal system to monitor management, based on the
recommendations of the IGS report (see point 3.5).

2.9.
The Commission’s most recent decisions regard-
ing on-the-spot veterinary checks (1) must, as the Com-
mission itself advocates, be backed by speedy action.
The ESC agrees that the results of inspection visits, in
the shape of provision of information on shortcomings
in the Member States’ control systems, should be
available on the Internet, in annual reports and at
regular discussions between consumer and producer
organizations. However, one condition must be that
the Member States under criticism should have an
opportunity, prior to publication, to comment on such
information and correct misunderstandings. However,
the publication of information relating directly or
indirectly to individual undertakings would be in breach
of Treaty Article 214 on confidential information con-
cerning undertakings (2).

(1) Commission Decisions 98/139/EC and 98/140/EC of
4.2.1998 concerning on-the-spot veterinary checks carried
out by Commission experts in the Member States and third
countries respectively (OJ L 38, 12.2.1998).

(2) Under Treaty Article 214, persons employed by the EU are
forbidden ‘to disclose information of the kind covered
by the obligation of professional secrecy, in particular
information about undertakings, their business relations
or their cost components’.

2.11.
Leaving aside the importance of continued
prioritization of the food sector, compliance with EU
rules on animal health and welfare remains a matter of
key importance for operation of the single market, as
borne out by the large volume of legislation on this
subject.

2.12.
In this connection, the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) has also warned against the risk of
serious new epidemics of contagious animal diseases as
a result of intensive livestock production, the increase
in long-distance transport of animals and the opening
of new trade routes to the Middle East and the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), combined
with unstable conditions and inadequate control and
inspection of contagious animal diseases, notably in the
Balkans. The threat comes not just from traditional
contagious diseases but from new diseases such as BSE.
Here the FAO stresses that it is most important for
the European countries to have effective veterinary
administrations.

2.13.
In connection with the WTO negotiations on
ways of reconciling free international trade in goods
with such considerations as health and safety, the ESC
calls on the Commission and the Council to do their
utmost to insist on, and secure international acceptance
for, the EU’s control policy with a view to responding
to the problems generated by liberalization of trade in
the food, veterinary and plant health sector.

3. Specific comments

3.1.
To date the Food and Veterinary Office has
found it hard to carry out its duties because its staff is
far too small. It is debatable whether a gradual increase
over a number of years, in line with the IGS report’s
recommendations, to a total of 202 posts, including 127
A grade posts,
is adequate in view of the future
requirements described above.

3.2. Without making any concession on the need
to recruit staff with the requisite qualifications and
the Commission’s complex and time-
experience,

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consuming recruitment procedures need to be speeded
up so that the Office can become fully operational as
speedily as possible. Otherwise it will not be in a position
to meet the professional and political expectations of its
role within a foreseeable future. The end result could
then be frustration and unfortunate setbacks.

3.3.
The transfer of the Food and Veterinary Office
to Ireland was decided at the November 1993 Summit
of the Heads of State or Government and is therefore
not a matter for discussion. Nonetheless the siting of
the Office at Grange, a rural area 40 km north of Dublin
does give rise to a number of difficulties from the angle
of staff recruitment and the practical performance of its
tasks. Accordingly, in connection with the forthcoming
expansion, the Commission should consider carefully
whether a more central location in Dublin would make
it easier for the Office to operate efficiently and
effectively.

At the same time care must be taken to ensure
3.4.
that the siting of the Office in Ireland does not lead to a
duplicate administration in Brussels, generating con-
fusion as to responsibility. The distribution of tasks
among several directorates-general and the resulting
need for information and coordination, will in itself

Brussels, 27 May 1998.

inevitably necessitate a considerable strain on resources,
regardless of the Commission’s internal guidelines (1).

The ESC supports the Commission’s plans for
3.5.
stringent internal checks on management, including the
setting up within the Food and Veterinary Office of
an internal
‘quality team’ whose status would be
independent of the Office’s internal management struc-
ture, as required for such structures under the principles
governing the role of inspection bodies.

3.6.
The ESC, which counts amongst its members’
representatives of all links in the chain, from primary
production to consumption, attaches great importance
to the Commission’s future control and inspection
activities and will
follow developments with keen
attention. The ESC expects to be kept informed of
progress and to be consulted on further measures in this
sphere.

(1) The principles governing the distribution of responsibili-
ties, including internal information and consultation pro-
cedures, are described in the Commission’s internal hand-
book of 4 July 1997. Responsibility for the scientific
committees and control activities is assigned to DG XXIV.
DG III (food), DG V (food-related and zoonotic diseases)
and DG VI (veterinary and plant health sector) are
responsible for drafting, implementing and enforcing legis-
lation.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Tom JENKINS