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For consumers, safety
is the most important ingredient of their food.
Recent crises have undermined public confidence
in the capacity of the food industry and of
public authorities to ensure that food is safe.
The European Commission has identified food
safety as one of its top priorities. The
White
Paper on Food Safety
 of January
12, 2000 sets out the plans for a proactive new
food policy: modernising legislation into a
coherent and transparent set of rules,
reinforcing controls from the farm to the table
and increasing the capability of the scientific
advice system, so as to guarantee a high level
of human health and consumer protection.
The Commission
received
comments from more
than one hundred interested parties on the
White Paper.
Press release
Commission
adopts White Paper on Food Safety and sets out
a "Farm to Table" legislative action programme,
12 January 2000
The
Strategic Priorities of the White Paper
are:
- to create a European
Food Safety Authority
- to consistently
implement a farm to table approach in food
legislation
- to establish the
principle that feed and food operators have
primary responsibility for food safety; that
Member States need to ensure
surveillance and control of these operators;
that the
Commission shall test the performance
of Member States' control capacities and
capabilities through audits and
inspections
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