EU food safety agency seen limited to advisory role

NOORDWIJK AAN ZEE, Netherlands (Reuters) -- A food safety agency to be formed by the European Union should not have decision-making powers, European parliamentarian Jan Mulder said on Wednesday.

"This agency should be involved in various risk assessments of food products. But it should not have the ultimate authority to take decisions," Mulder told the AgriVision conference in the Netherlands.

A string of food safety scares, such as last year's affair in which cancer-causing dioxin was discovered in Belgian animal feed, plus controversy over gene-modified foods, has spurred the European Commission to create an agency that will ensure food products are not harmful. Many industry officials have demanded that the agency, due to be launched by 2002, should have a strong mandate so food issues were put above national politics.

Mulder, who sits on a committee that is helping thrash out the parliament's position on the agency, said the European Commission and national governments must have the ultimate say in food safety matters.

"As it looks at the moment, a (food safety) body will be formed which will act as a point of scientific reference for the EU and member states based on the principles of scientific integrity, academic excellence, independence, accountability, transparency and comprehensibility," he said.

"For concrete measures, normal legislative practices should be followed, whereby the Commission proposes new directives or regulations and the council and parliament decide in accordance with the 'codecision procedure'," Mulder added.

The parliament will decide within a couple of weeks its position on the food safety agency.

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