The Regulation of Food Safety and the Use of Traceability/Tracing
in the EU and USA: Convergence or Divergence?
David
BYRNE
European Commissioner for
Health and Consumer Protection
Food Safety Conference
Washington, DC
19 March 2004
Introduction
The profile of risk and risk-related issues has risen
markedly in the last 15 years. There has been a growing recognition of the
importance of proper risk management and increasing interest in how this
can be best used in relation to governance.
Of the various components of risk analysis – assessment,
management and communication – where the perception of risk fits in is
perhaps the most difficult aspect to understand and evaluate. The way that
individuals, groups and societies react when faced with risk situations
can often be difficult to predict – and indeed may appear irrational.
With a view to furthering our understanding of risk
perception, the European Commission hosted a
major conference in Brussels
in December of last year which attracted a wide range of participants from
different backgrounds to try to get to the heart of the matter.
I am delighted to have the opportunity today to widen the
discussion in a trans-Atlantic forum. I am sure that there is much than we
can learn from each other. One of the particular issues highlighted by our
Brussels conference was the differing attitudes to specific risks which
may arise in different societies and cultures. The contrast in public
attitudes to
GM foods and
BSE are two good examples of divergent
perception between Europe and the United States.
I will touch on both of these issues in the course of this
address – in the context of explaining the European Union’s broad approach
to issues of risk, in particular in the field of
food safety.
Risk Perception
But first – a few words in general about risk perception.
We do not habitually seek out the safest route as we go about our daily
lives. Some risks we regard as inevitable, part and parcel of everyday
life. Some risks we actively choose for the value they add to life. There
is a risk attached to almost everything we do. Even inactivity carries
risk. Zero risk does not exist.
Allow me to mention briefly a few specific factors.
Risks taken by individuals that are under their personal
control appear to be more readily acceptable than those which are outside
their control.
Linked to this is the question of who decides on the risk. Individuals
seem more comfortable with risks they decide to take on their own rather
than risks which are decided on their behalf – by Governments, for
example.
Citizens tend to be more concerned about accidents for which, despite
being relatively rare, the chances of survival are slim (such as plane
crashes), while more common and random events (such as car accidents) for
which the chances of survival are higher are of apparently less concern.
And benefit. What’s in it for me? Why should I be asked to take a risk,
however small, if I cannot see any tangible benefit from doing so? This
strikes an obvious chord with the GM debate in relation to food, a subject
which continues to attract significant attention, at least in so far as
perceptions in the EU are concerned.
GM foods
Despite repeated scientific assurance about the safety of
consuming genetically modified food products, European public attitudes
towards GM foods have, to date, shown few if any signs of a thaw. The
science-based message simply fails to get across, or if it does, it is
ignored.
European citizens have, by and large, made up their minds.
Further attempts at public persuasion might even prove to be
counter-productive if citizens feel they are being leant on or otherwise
coerced into changing their views.
Against this background the European policy response was
essentially twofold. First we ensured that a rigorous risk assessment and
approval procedure was put in place. Second, we introduced a requirement
for the clear labelling of GM products. This will enable European
consumers to exercise choice over whether or not they choose to buy GM
products.
I know that many on this side of the Atlantic take issue
with this approach, but I maintain that it is entirely appropriate – and
indeed the only tenable way forward in the circumstances, given the weight
of public resistance to GM. I acknowledge that friends in the US find the
European public’s attitude to GM difficult to understand. However, our
consumers demanded clear labelling and traceability as essential
prerequisites.
Perhaps attitudes will ameliorate over time and with clear
choice available. Indeed the availability of GM foods with real benefits
could help. But despite the protestations of the biotech industry there
appears to be no immediate evidence of any short to medium term benefits.
Trust and transparency
The public’s reaction to GM is only one example of how
Europe’s consumers seek verifiable and trustworthy information about food.
It raises the whole question of public trust in relation to governments
and public institutions.
The structures of European democracies have shown a marked
shift in recent years with the rise of the stakeholder society. At a time
when interest and involvement in politics at citizen level appears to be
receding, strenuous efforts have been and continue to be made to engage
citizens in the processes and decisions which ultimately affect them. To
make them feel they are part of the political process and not just the
recipients of the decisions of others.
Clearly there is a need to develop trust. The food safety
agencies, which have been established in many European countries, serve as
good examples. These agencies create a credible and visible distance
between different government structures with the broad aim of increasing
transparency which, in turn, bolsters public acceptance and confidence.
European Food Safety Authority
It was also necessary to reinforce trust in the pan-European system of food safety. In this regard, I established the
European
Food Safety Authority. This provides independent scientific risk
assessment in respect of food safety questions and communicates risk
information to the public.
Because of the legal structure in the EU, and in line with
CODEX guidelines, risk management responsibilities have not been delegated
to EFSA. These remain with the Commission, the Council of Ministers and
the European Parliament as appropriate.
You will hear more later today about EFSA from its
Executive Director Geoffrey Podger.
Role of the media
The communication of risk to the public is of crucial
importance. Of course, the media plays a major role in how the public
perceives risk.
The problem for public authorities becomes one of how to transmit clear
and accurate risk messages against the backdrop of certain sections of the
media apparently intent on maximising hysteria.
BSE
One lesson we can learn from past experience is that
conflicting messages are a major cause of destabilising consumer
confidence in times of difficulty. Take the BSE crisis for example, which
emerged in Europe from the mid-1990s. Indeed, BSE is an issue that has
recently come to the fore in the United States.
One of the aftershock effects of the UK government’s
announcement of a possible link between BSE and new variant CJD in 1996
was a fragmentation of messages from public authorities and the media
right across Europe – which led to chaos, confusion and a meltdown in
public confidence, which went far beyond the question of beef from just
one country.
The beef market collapsed. People felt they had been
misled.
When stringent measures were introduced to close off the
possibility of potentially infected meat entering the food chain public
confidence in beef gradually began to return.
Four years after the UK announcement, a similar crisis
re-emerged in Germany. When BSE was finally discovered, as scientifically
predicted, once again public confidence plummeted.
And in France a second BSE crisis arose in late 2000 when
French citizens realised the extent of BSE. History was re-writing itself
in terms of the “communications gap.”
The clear lesson is that a transparent and consistent
approach to risk communication is vital in gaining and maintaining public
confidence and trust.
It is interesting to compare the US public reaction to BSE
with the European examples I have described. The benign reaction of the US
beef market and the apparent lack of widespread public concern following
the discovery of the US BSE case just before Christmas shows a stark
contrast in public reactions to BSE in Europe.
Why should this be the case?
Are US consumers in general prepared to tolerate the risk
of BSE? Contrast this with the ultra-precautionary approach of some of the
main trading partners of the US. Here we have further evidence of global
divergences in risk perception and consequent risk management measures.
Reform of the EU food safety system
In Europe the reaction to the succession of BSE-related
crises, together with a number of other high profile food scares, had a
profound affect on overall confidence in the European food industry’s
ability to deliver safe food.
Despite the fact that such incidents only affected certain
sectors, the entire industry suffered. A few rotten apples had effectively
contaminated the whole barrel.
Regaining public trust in the European food supply
therefore became a major challenge for me when I took up my position as
European Commissioner with responsibility for food safety in September
1999. I embarked on a thorough root-and-branch reform of our systems to
ensure that risks to the public were minimised.
But, as I have said, zero risk is an impossible dream. We
needed to ensure, visibly, that where potential or actual problems are
discovered, these could be quickly and effectively eliminated.
Traceability
We do not have time this morning to go into all of the
details as to how we set about restoring confidence. The creation of EFSA
was, as I have indicated, a crucial element.
But with the food chain we needed to ensure that if
something went wrong it could be quickly identified and put right.
Mandatory recall (a key feature of our
General Food Law) would not work
without mandatory
traceability which we also introduced for the first time
right across Europe.
On the US side there was still the tendency to stick with
voluntary recall and trace-back approaches. But in the intervening couple
of years the US food industry was struck by the “Starlink” GM
contamination of foodstuffs which, in the absence of mandatory trace-back
mechanisms, caused significant damage in terms of confidence and costs.
Now you have had your first finding of BSE. This has
fuelled demands for trace-back of related cattle. Moreover, it has brought
to the fore the whole notion of mandatory animal identification which has
been an essential feature of the European approach to animal health and
public health for so many years.
A key element in improving the safety of the food chain
has been the strengthening of our traceability measures. Too often when
food crises occurred it proved extremely difficult and expensive to trace
and withdraw the offending products. “Starlink” is the classic example.
So we have put a system of traceability in place that I
term a “one up one down approach” – requiring each operator to know the
step before him in the food chain and the step after. This system of
tracing goods in the food chain is not new. Many firms already had a
similar system in place.
The difference in the EU from next year is that all producers will, by
law, have to have such a system in place. To enable the
EU of 25 Member
States to have a fully integrated common market in food such a legislative
system is essential.
We have witnessed animal feed contamination where huge
amounts of stocks had to be destroyed, and trade disrupted, because
adequate traceability provisions were not in place.
These types of occurrences provoke enormous concerns among
consumers. Ensuring the confidence of EU consumers necessitates such
systems to facilitate withdrawal of goods that can be traded through the
25 Member States.
In the United States, it is interesting to note a degree of increasing
convergence with Europe, albeit coming from a different political
direction – that of the threat of
bioterrorism (an area incidentally where
the public perception of risk is probably higher in the US than it is in
Europe).
US systems for the registration of exporters and the prior notification of
imports are motivated by a desire to protect American citizens from the
threat of deliberately contaminated food and food products. There is a
marked similarity to European systems in this regard.
It seems to me that in traceability (no more so than in
many other areas) there is greater convergence than one might otherwise
think.
The precautionary principle and risk
Let me now turn to the question of precaution, as it is
sometimes called here in the US, or the
precautionary principle as it is
called in the EU.
I have made it known on many occasions since the beginning of my mandate
that I am no fan of the indiscriminate use of precaution. Precaution in
this sense can be a thinly disguised trade protection measure, not to
mention a badge of political cowardice.
To govern its use in the food arena, we now have
legislation in the European Union – Article 7 of our General Food Law.
It is clear from this important Article that the principle
can only be considered when certain pre-requisite conditions are
satisfied. These are:
There are potentially harmful effects deriving from a
phenomenon, product or process that have been identified;
That scientific evaluation does not allow the risk to be determined with
sufficient certainty;
There has to be an objective evaluation of available scientific data and
other information before any decision is made to invoke the precautionary
principle.
It is not a joker or wild card that can be played at any
moment as a pretext for unjustified measures.
The second part of the Article provides the scope and
limitations for the use of the precautionary principle. It provides that
precautionary measures “shall be proportionate and no more restrictive of
trade than is required to achieve the high level of health protection
chosen in the Community, regard being had to technical and economic
feasibility and other factors regarded as legitimate in the matter under
consideration.”
Those measures are to be reviewed within a reasonable
period of time, depending on the nature of the risk to life and health
identified and the type of scientific information needed to clarify the
scientific uncertainty and to conduct a more comprehensive risk
assessment.
I would like to stress that precautionary measures are by
their nature provisional. Work must be put in place to identify new
scientific data through research, data collection or other activities with
clear responsibility for gathering this information being allocated so
that the measure can be reviewed at the earliest opportunity.
The European Court has endorsed the philosophy behind the
principle and its application, and has clarified the steps that need to be
followed. A public authority cannot take a purely hypothetical approach to
risk and may not simply base decisions on “zero risk.” Existing relevant
scientific data must always be evaluated before the precautionary
principle is invoked.
Conclusion
It is clear to me that both Europe and the US have very
safe food chains. I made that clear to Secretary Veneman in my discussions
with her yesterday.
Sometimes we have our differences about how things should
be done.
Therefore it is crucially important to have greater common understandings
of how our populations perceive risk. Diverging perceptions may ultimately
influence how our respective regulatory regimes respond to given risks.
Different responses to the same risk. Perhaps irrational, but
understandable.
We are living through what we call “globalisation,”
significantly driven by multi-national corporations and trade
liberalisation. It is vital, therefore, for all of us to reach better
appreciations of why we might agree on assessments of particular
situations, whereas our risk management approaches might be different.
Equally, we should be conscious of divergences in risk
assessments and their potential consequences.
It has become increasingly clear that risk perception
plays an important role in the mechanics of risk management, and that
approaches to risk management require further development for more
effective policy making and, ultimately, better governance.
One of the messages that rang out loud and clear from our
conference last December in Brussels was the stark contrast in the way
scientists look at risk compared with citizens either individually or
collectively in society.
The scientific approach is rational and methodical. It deals with
probabilities and population averages – a logical and theoretical
approach, free from emotional distortion. This is of course very useful.
However what it misses is the “human factor” and the wide variety of
influences which shape human behaviour.
One delegate put it most succinctly – people behave
according to perceptions, not facts.
In conclusion, may I thank the European Policy Centre, the
Atlantic Council and the Grocery Manufacturers of America for helping
organise this event.
My gratitude is also due to the European Commission
Delegation here in Washington.
I look forward to whatever perceptions or facts we can
glean from this conference.
