Last week EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg presented the European Commission's "smarter rules for safer food" package. This proposed package contains a number of proposals aimed at rebuilding consumer confidence in the quality of European food by reforming agri-food sector legislation. The agri-food sector is economically speaking, the second largest sector in the European Union. The sector employs approximately 48 million people and has a yearly turnover of 750 billion euro. Consumer confidence in EU food quality has decreased over the last year as a result of the horsemeat scandal where horsemeat was falsely labelled as beef. There was a strong public reaction to this scandal. However this was an issue of fraud as opposed to a public health issue. There was no public health risk; a point Commissioner Borg has repeated numerous times.

The European Union has one of the highest food safety standards in the world; nevertheless, Commissioner Borg feels there is always room for improvement. The package therefore contains measures aimed at enforcing health standards in every stage of the food chain. The package has been described as addressing the loopholes identified as a result of recent scandals such as the horsemeat scandal. The proposal also covers food labelling. Commissioner Borg has repeatedly stated that" prevention is better than a cure". Thus the proposed package aims to introduce a single piece of legislation covering animal health in the EU. This single piece of legislation would introduce better standards and control systems for animal disease and food and feed safety risks.

The proposed package contains a mechanism which would allow each member state to easily monitor their compliance with EU legislation. This is an important measure in light of the recent food scandals and necessary to ensure consumer protection as well as protecting honest businesses. The proposal also requires member states to introduce further security measures such as fully integrate fraud checks in their national control panels. Furthermore, the proposed package ensures that the financial penalties that may be imposed are sufficiently dissuasive. In addition, EU sanctions are proposed. According to Commissioner Borg the sanctions which should be imposed should be reflective of the financial gain from the violation of EU law. The proposed package also aims to provide more clarity to the rules which cover seeds and plant reproductive material to reduce the existing misconceptions regarding seed registration. However, as members of the Europe Parliament's EPP group have explained such reforms in this area need to be carefully considered. The full impact of any changes on the old and rare seeds in Europe needs to be fully ascertained. An estimated 60% of the world's export value of seeds originates from the European Union.

If the proposed package is introduced existing EU legislation will be reduced from approximately 70 pieces of legislation to five pieces. The aim of such a reduction is to reduce the existing administrative burden and red tape. Despite such a drastic reduction the aim is not to regulate less but to legislate in a more harmonious manner. Commissioner Borg feels that a more harmonious approach to legislating in the agri-food sector will have positive effects on food safety. It is also hoped that reforming the legislation in this area will create a more modern system that better reflects consumer needs and provide them with safer products. In addition, businesses will stand to benefit from the reforms as processes will be more efficient and transparent.

This proposed package for smarter rules and safer food still has a long way to go before being officially adopted. It still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and the European Commission. It is therefore expected that the proposed package will enter into force in 2016 under a new Parliament and Commission following the 2014 European elections.

David Casa is a Nationalist MEP