We have shielded the European Food Safety Agency against pressures from the industry, say S&Ds
Date
18 Apr 2019
Sections
Agriculture & Food
After a long political battle, today the European Parliament backed a deal reached with the EU Council to adopt a new regulation that will ensure transparency in the EU food chain risk assessment procedure.
Since the scandal around the chemical industry’s pressure to get market approval of glyphosate-based pesticides broke, Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament have been calling for a more transparent and independent system.
As requested by the S&Ds, the new regulation will cover the whole agri-food chain and it will make public all studies submitted by the industry and used by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) in the risk assessment.
S&D spokesperson on this file, Pavel Poc MEP, said:
“We have ensured a more transparent and reliable authorisation system of potentially dangerous substances such as pesticides, food additives, food contact materials, novel food or GMOs. Thanks to the new rules on the active and early disclosure of information during their risk assessment, European Food Safety Authority opens its doors to citizens and their independent scrutiny of data provided by the industry. Any information relevant to safety assessment will be always disclosed to the public.
“Today we stop fraudulent practices such as the concealing of unfavourable studies and data or the buying of ‘favourable’ results. No more Glyphosate-kind cases in the EU, no more decisions behind closed doors and no more gambling with our health. In today's world where the driving force is money, the only hope for citizens is to have a robust system of authorisation that will be sufficiently resistant to external pressure and when all fraudulent practices will be easily detected and corrected.
"This law represents a leap forward towards greater food safety and better protection of European citizens. I am glad that our Group has proved that we put consumers’ health and rights above commercial interests.”