Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-09-Speech-1-072"
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"Mr President, as rapporteur, I welcome the Commission's proposal on food enzymes, along with the other proposals in this package, as do industry and consumer groups generally. This proposal is actually the first piece of specific legislation aimed at food enzymes.
Food enzymes are not and cannot be GMOs. However, an increasing amount of them are derived from genetically modified micro-organisms, and it is important to stress this distinction in order to avoid misunderstandings.
In my enzymes report I strongly recommend a single legal base for this regulation as it favours legal certainty which is in the line of most ECJ judgments on these matters. Dual legal bases generally mean sloppy drafting and leave the measure open to challenge, with respect. This regulation is purely a market harmonisation measure so I would prefer a single legal base in Article 95, the internal market legal base, alone.
A key issue of concern in the report on food additives is the proposed change in the definition of processing aids contained in several amendments that would require them to be authorised and labelled as additives if they are present in the final product, even when they are not active. This change was not put forward by the Commission in its original proposal and would signal a major departure from the current approach in EU food legislation with potentially major consequences for the European food industry.
Such a change would be out of synch with the Codex definition on processing aids and so could adversely affect European competitiveness and international trade. I am also dubious as to whether such excessive label clutter would actually improve consumer information.
To conclude, I would like to thank my colleagues for their support and collaboration, particularly Mrs Westlund and Mrs Drčar Murko. We need to coordinate and harmonise the four pieces of legislation in this package as much as possible in order to achieve coherent and practical regulations that can be easily interpreted and applied in all Member States and I look forward to further fine-tuning these reports at second reading.
Enzymes are added to food to perform a wide range of technological functions in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packaging, transport or storage of foods. They are most commonly used in baking, brewing and cheese production and in the production of alcohol and other beverages.
While enzymes have been used for centuries in food production, in the latter half of the 20th century the use of enzymes in food production increased significantly and, since the 1980s, companies which produce enzymes have been using genetic engineering techniques to improve production efficiency and quality and to develop new products.
At present, there are no harmonised rules at Community level controlling the use of enzymes, creating not only barriers to trade and lack of legal certainty but also differing standards of health and consumer protection across the 27 Member States with only three Member States having their own risk assessment procedures at present, namely the United Kingdom, France and Denmark.
A regulation on food enzymes will therefore improve the operation of the single market in this area and thus promote European innovation and competitiveness, while ensuring a high level of consumer and environmental protection.
The proposed common authorisation procedure, for which Mrs Westlund is rapporteur, will also improve the efficiency of the single market with all risk assessments and all authorisations for food improvement agents being undertaken by the European Food Safety Authority.
There are just a few points I would like to highlight. Commissioner, I am also in favour of the ‘comitology with the right to parliamentary scrutiny’ procedure for this legislation. And I would like to see this harmonised across all four reports in the package, as these are technical reports which are best handled by the experts at EFSA and the Commission. Furthermore, as we are in the early stages of this new scrutiny system, we need to give it time to work before calling it into question.
I am concerned about the potential for double authorisation that this new enzyme regulation could create for food enzymes derived from genetically modified organisms which fall under the scope of Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 on genetically modified food and feed. Under the present Commission proposal, the wording implies that such food enzymes would have to be authorised in accordance with that regulation before they may be assessed under this regulation for inclusion in the Community list.
While we have assurances that best administrative practice will apply in these cases at EFSA, I have proposed plenary amendments to my report to make it clear that EFSA could carry out concurrent or simultaneous assessments in accordance with the two pieces of relevant legislation. I support similar amendments to the reports on food additives and flavourings. We need coordinated wording across this package of legislation and there is agreement on this in large part between the Council, the Commission and industry on how to proceed."@en1
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