Risk assessment of our food chain should be immune to any pressure from the industry, say S&Ds
Date
11 Dec 2018
Sections
Health & Consumers
Today the European Parliament voted for a stricter and impartial European system to exclude any dangerous substance from the food chain. Socialists and Democrats have been at the forefront in the fight against harmful pesticides, such as those containing glyphosate.
The S&D Group insisted that the new system should cover the whole agri-food chain, to ensure the independence of the authorisation process as well as public availability of studies submitted by the industry and used by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) in the risk assessment.
The S&D spokesperson on this file, Pavel Poc MEP, said:
“There has been a shade of mistrust on how EFSA approves its reports. We must reinstall trust in the European food chain and make our institutions resistant to any external pressure. People’s health should come first, not a company’s profit.
“Copyright and patents must be protected, but not at the cost of reduced safety. The early disclosure of information in the risk assessment process is the only way to provide risk assessors with the best available scientific knowledge and to ensure high level of protection for the environment, public and animal health.”
S&D spokesperson on environment and health, Miriam Dalli, said:
“We take citizens’ concerns on harmful substances very seriously. Today’s vote culminates a long effort that started with the Citizens’ Initiative on Glyphosate, with the creation of a special committee on pesticides in the European Parliament, and the introduction of a system to evaluate pesticides according to the findings of the special committee.
"The risk assessment process will be more transparent, and we also demand additional guarantees of reliability, objectivity and independence of the studies used by EFSA.”