POLITICS VERSUS SCIENCE: APPORTIONING ... - Buffalo State

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Where a member of the network has any information relating to the existence of a serious direct or indirect risk to human health deriving from food or feed, this information shall be immediately notified to the Authority under the rapid alert system. The Authority shall establish whether, on the basis of notification, the product in question presents a serious risk to human health, necessitating rapid action. This is important because the rapid alert system is generally thought of as risk communication; however, both the Parliament (2001) and Council classified it as risk management in defending their decision to retain this function in the Commission, effectively preserving each institution's power: for the Council, it retained regulatory authority in the comitology committees and for the Parliament, the oversight power it had exercised during the BSE crisis. Neither the Council nor Parliament desired such far reaching control to be shifted to an independent, regulatory authority. The final outcome, adopted on 28 January 2002 13 the European Food and Safety Authority (Commission 2002a) 14 was less supranational than the Commission’s White Paper proposal. At Parliament’s initiative, “Safety” was inserted into the original European Food Authority, thereby underlining the singleness of its competency. 15 The EFSA (2003) explains its competency as: "The Authority will primarily be a scientific risk assessment body; the responsibility for risk management or decision making remaining with the EU's political institutions: the European Commission, the Council of EU Ministers and the EU Parliament." The Authority is responsible for (EFSA 2003): 13 Came into force 21 February 2002. 14 “Pursuant to the general principles of food law, the Authority should take the role of an independent scientific point of reference on risk assessment and in so doing should assist in ensuring the smooth functioning of the internal market. It may be called upon to give opinions on contentious scientific issues, thereby enabling the Community institutions and Members <strong>State</strong>s to take informed risk management decisions necessary to ensure food and feed safety whilst helping avoid the fragmentation of the internal market through the adoption of unjustified or unnecessary obstacles to the free movement of food and feed.” (European Commission 2002a: 3) 15 See Buonanno and Nugent (2002) for an account of Parliament’s evolution of support for a U.S. FDAstyle regulatory authority to information agency. 22
• the scientific evaluation of risks • the collection and analysis of scientific data • safety evaluations of dossiers put forward by industry for Community level approval of substances or processes • identification of emerging risks • scientific support to the Commission particularly in the case of a food safety crisis • direct communication to the public and other interested parties of information concerning matters within its remit. The EFA is funded from the Community budget and, when fully operational, would dispose of substantial in-house scientific expertise. The Authority is expected to employ up to 250 people after three years, with a budget of €40 million. This will be reviewed after three years. This can be compared with the U.S. FDA , which employs over 9,000 people and has 2,100 scientists working for it in a large number of specialist laboratories. It has full legal responsibility for its decisions and is thought to undertake 90% of its scientific work in-house (Randall 2001). In conclusion, “the core task of the Authority will be to provide independent scientific advice and support and to set up a network for close co-operation with similar bodies in Member <strong>State</strong>s. It will assess risks related to the food chain and give the general public information about food risks” (European Commission 2001c). THE ROLE OF POLICY NETWORKS The Commission, as in other policy areas, has adopted the policy network approach to the management of food safety in the European Union. EFSA (2003) describes its mission to "share its findings and listen to the views of others through a vast network (emphasis added) that will be developed over time, as well as interacting with experts and decision-makers on many levels." Figure 4 depicts the current European 23
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POLITICS VERSUS SCIENCE: APPORTIONING ... - Buffalo State

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