In its Health and Food Audits and Analysis programme for 2020, the European Commission plans to conduct up to 230 audits and other on-the-spot visits in EU Member States and third countries. The audits will cover a range of areas including food safety, health protection, animal health and welfare and plant health. On-the-spot work will be carried out on general follow-up and other horizontal issues and audits and other on-the-spot visits each will cover the areas of food quality, feed safety and import controls. The Commission also plans to conduct a number of desk analyses to support its audit activities as well as a broad range of follow-up, networking and training activities. The objective of these measures is to verify that EU legislation on food and feed safety, food quality, animal health and welfare, plant health and certain areas of human health is properly implemented and enforced. The outcome of the audits carried out by the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, and, in particular, by its Directorate 'Health and Food Audits and Analysis', will be made available to the public. The findings on the ground will also be summarised in overview reports which serve as a basis for discussions with Member States about identified common challenges and best practices to share. The programme also contains a short report on the audits performed in 2018. Through this work, the Commission is able • to retain its critical oversight of the operation of control systems and • to establish whether the legislation in the above areas remains effective and fit for purpose to minimise risks to food safety, public health, animal health and welfare, and plant health. As a result, EU citizens and businesses can continue to enjoy uniform and high levels of safety. Click on the "Read more..." below for more about the work programme
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The EU has strict rules for biocidal products that are used to control organisms that are harmful to human and animal health and to the environment. These harmful organisms include pests (e.g. insects, rats or mice) and microorganisms (e.g. bacteria, viruses and mould). Biocidal products are widely used in materials such as plastics, paints, textiles, wood, etc. to protect these materials against microbial, fungi or insect decay. Because of their intrinsic properties, biocidal products can pose risks to humans, animals and the environment. To examine how the EU's strict rules and procedures to minimise these risks are implemented by Member States, the European Commission carried out a series of fact-finding missions. In total, five countries were visited in 2017 and in 2018. The report highlights challenges encountered and good practices applied by Members States when implementing EU biocide regulation. It also includes actions taken or planned by the European Commission and by Member States when implementing this regulation.
Plant health is of global importance for sustainable agriculture, food security and protection of the natural environment. These are all at risk from the combined effects of the globalisation of trade and climate change, which increase the likelihood of introduction of pests and diseases not previously present in the European Union. The ongoing risks to plant health in the EU are illustrated by the frequent findings of harmful organisms by Member States during their import control checks. This report provides an overview of a European Commission project on import controls for plant health. The project identified substantial differences between Member States in their capacity and implementation of import checks. The report highlights some of the many examples of good practice and critical points that were identified by the project and the action taken subsequently by the Commission and Member States during the development of the new plant health regime. Member States are recommended to consider these for their import control systems.
A new European Commission overview report about the operation of official controls in the area of plant health, finds that official controls in the exporting countries are not always carried out in line with EU requirements, be it regarding their scope, frequency or level of detail and therefore cannot always guarantee that the goods are free from harmful organisms. In order to manage the plant health risk the EU continuously monitors the interceptions, adjusts import rules and assists in developing the plant health control system in the exporting countries. The report is based on audits conducted in 11 of the main exporting countries.
The updated list of audits and other on-the-spot activities to be carried out by the DG’s Health and Food Audits and Analysis Directorate in the period of July to December 2019 has been published and can be found in three language versions (English, German and French) at the 'Read more...' link below:
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a rising threat to human and animal health and requires urgent and concerted action to limit its development and to maintain an arsenal of effective antimicrobials. This report presents an overview of the measures taken in the EU and beyond to promote the prudent use of antimicrobials in animals, as advocated in the relevant Union guidelines. These measures also include biosecurity and vaccination for disease prevention, control and eradication. Encouragingly, there are signs that these holistic approaches have led to decreasing levels of AMR. The report highlights potential examples of good practice which may be useful to other countries in shaping national policies on prudent use, as well as some challenges. The report also describes the Commission's current and future plans in this area, in particular new EU legislation on veterinary medicinal products and medicated feed.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is recognised as a significant and challenging global phenomenon. The European Commission has been at the forefront in developing and supporting strategies to fight this threat. The collection and analysis of reliable and comparable data is crucial to understanding current and future trends in the development of AMR, and therefore designing strategies to minimise it. EU legislation specifies how Member States should sample, test and report the results for AMR monitoring in zoonotic and commensal bacteria found in animals and food. Since 2015 the Commission has audited the AMR monitoring systems of 15 countries. Following the interim report in 2017, this final overview report confirms the importance of these audits in encouraging improvements in the delivery of AMR monitoring, as well as in identifying obstacles to its success and highlighting examples of good practice. The report also describes the Commission's current and future plans in this area, in particular the ongoing review of EU legislation in this area. To read the report and learn more about AMR monitoring in the EU, click below on Read more.
In Member State, food safety authorities must have audit arrangements in place to assure their top management and stakeholders that: • official feed and food control systems have been set up in compliance with European Union (EU) and national legislation; • official controls are carried out as intended; • the control systems are effective and suitable in achieving the objectives of the legislation; A new overview report based on a series of Commission audits in Member States finds that the vast majority of Competent Authorities had national audit arrangements in place and that the outputs of these audit activities were, for the most part used to improve the consistency and effectiveness of official controls. This was in particular true, when there was strong management commitment to the follow-up of audit recommendations. The overview report describes also some specific areas for improvement to strengthen the credibility, reliability, relevance and impact of national audit systems. It finally highlights useful practices and describes actions taken and planned by both the Member States and the European Commission services in response to the findings of this audit series. To learn more about this topic please click on the "read more" link below.
A series of 14 Better Training for Safer Food (BTSF) training sessions on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) was launched in December 2018. The training courses are mainly addressed to central competent authorities involved in IPM and aim to improve the understanding of the IPM concept and IPM schemes looking at different crops to help develop criteria for assessment of IPM implementation at farm level. The second phase of a BTSF project to support the Member State systems for testing and calibration of Pesticide Application Equipment has also started. The first training session took place in November 2018 in Marseille (France) with 5 more to come in 2019 and early 2020. Participants of all BTSF sessions actively disseminate the information learnt during the training course in their respective Member State. Further details, see Read more... below.