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BFSA - BUSINESS PLAN 2015-2017 Belgian Food Safety Agency |
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| The BFSA as an organization |
Social, economic and administrative context | Stakeholders vision | Strategic and operational objectives 2015-2017 |
Inspection frequencies | State of affairs of the objectives |
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European context Printable version |  Last update on
22.04.2016In a broader context, the current food safety policy in Europe is the fruit of joint efforts forming part of a global, integrated approach that covers the entire food chain “from farm to fork”. This approach only really emerged at the end of the last century as a reaction to several food scares, the most serious of which was the BSE crisis. The aim was to regain consumer trust in the safety of foodstuffs, based on a harmonised community approach. Consultation and discussions at European level via the General Principles of Food Law in the European Union, Commission Green Paper (1997) and the White Paper on food safety (2000), finally resulted in general food safety legislation (2002). This regulation (regulation (EC) no. 178/2002, also referred to as the General Food Law), lays down the general principles for ensuring the safety of the food chain, without overlooking free circulation within the Community and compliance with international standards, such as Codex Alimentarius. The General Food Law formed the foundation for a set of complementary legislation such as the food hygiene package and the regulation on official controls. This gave rise to the implementation of a risk analysis approach, incorporating the precautionary principle into the food and feed sector, as well as consumer protection, full transparency, guaranteed traceability and a definition of the basic responsibilities for FFBO’s and authorities. FFBO’s are responsible for the safety of products. Compliance with regulations by FFBO’s must be verified by official controls carried out by the competent authorities. Related and complementary regulations also define requirements, in particular for animal feed hygiene and the microbiological criteria for foodstuffs. The European Commission decided to review this European regulation and the resulting legal framework, focusing on the adequacy of the food policy that it had been pursuing since 2002. This “fitness check”, as it was called, was outsourced to consultancy firms. The questions posed in this fitness check mainly concerned achievement of the objectives persued by the regulation, the impact of the regulation on specific or national legislation, and the administrative burden. In parallel, vertical requirements and standards were specified, including for animal by-products, materials in contact with foodstuffs, additives and particular nutritional uses. This review by the Commission should result in a number of measures being revised. It is not yet clear what kind of impact this will have and what the possible adjustments could be. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was created as an independent body that provides scientific opinion and scientific and technical support on all matters that have a bearing on food safety. It provides independent information on all such fields and also handles the communication of risk information. It is supported by a network of national risk control bodies. Notifications and information are sent via the rapid alert system for food and feed (RASFF) to the network of contacts in 28 Member States, the European Commission,, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. The EFSA opinions and the information issued by the RASFF system are both used to steer the BFSA control programme. Within the Commission, the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) monitors not only the way in which Member States implement and apply the regulation, but also how third countries that export products to the European Union guarantee that their products meet European minimum standards. The FVO devotes some of its resources to fact-finding missions to obtain an overall picture of how the regulation is implemented, as well as in fields that were previously considered to be less important, and to identifying best practices and disseminating them to other Member States. Consultation between national and European authorities is formalised via permanent working groups (SCoPAFF – Standing Committees on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed), the European Commission groups of experts and Council working groups. There are also informal working groups, presided by the EC, to help Member States to implement legislation via an exchange of experiences through national experts. In addition to consultations between Chief Veterinary Officers (CVO) and Chief Officers of Plant Health Services (COPHS), there is also consultation between heads of the European food safety agencies. The aim of this consultation is to improve collaboration between agencies to enable them to learn from each other. This was further developped in 2013 and now has a permanent secretariat to ensure continuity. The EC also recognises the role that this consultation body plays in drawing up a more effective policy. Exchanges of information, experiences and collaboration in maintaining the level of food safety legislation also take place via working groups, meetings and informal seminars of Food Law Enforcement Practitioners (FLEP). Although European food safety policy has resulted in harmonisation in most fields, it allows a degree of flexibility in a number of aspects. With so much self-employment, SMEs and micro-enterprises, in the future, Belgium will have to ensure they can continue to rely on flexibility and provide them with a suitable environment in which to function. In 2013, the European Commission proposed an ambitious package of measures to modernise, simplify and strengthen the agri-food chain in other fields in Europe, extending the risk-based approach to sectors that have not yet implemented it: “Smarter rules for safer food”. The aim is to reduce current EU animal health law, plant health law, laws on seeds and propagating material and official controls throughout the agri-food chain, to five regulations (the 5-pack). The precise impact and scope of the planned regulations is difficult to evaluate because many secondary legislation is expected to emerge through delegated or implementing acts. Moreover, lengthy discussions between the Parliament and the Council will certainly precede the final decision on these legal instruments. Another point that merits attention is the review of the rules on financing official controls and other official activities. It is essential to ensure that the general principle that competent authorities should have sufficient resources to carry out their tasks, still allows sufficient flexibility for implementation on a national level. The current policy and the initiatives referred to above must be seen in the context of a Europe that is still in the process of enlargement and which has itself, with Europe 2020, set out five ambitious objectives for employment, innovation, education, social inclusion and climate/energy. In addition, new technologies are coming into play, the production process is becoming increasingly complex, new trends are emerging within society, such as new eating habits (e.g. eating insects), and food waste is under ever closer scrutiny, without losing sight of food safety – all elements that require the constant development of regulations. Meanwhile, as we will explore in greater detail, consumers continue to count on the authorities to monitor the safety of the food chain and to deal with crises and incidents, such as the EHEC epidemic in Germany (2011). More recently, the economic fraude behind the horse meat scandal (2013) brought food fraud into the European spotlight. Clearly a policy coordinated at European level would have the best chance of success in the future. Implementation of the five-pack should prove particularly useful in this respect. |
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