Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T06:52:02.612Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Conflicting Notifications in the EU's Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF): ‘Destabilization’ in Food Risk Communication?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

James Lawless*
Affiliation:
UCD School of Law, UCD Institute of Food and Health, Dublin, Ireland

Abstract

Case T-212/06, Bowland Dairy Products Ltd v. Commission

The Commission, as co-ordinator of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), is not entitled to refuse the circulation of a supplementary notification made by a Member State to the system, regardless of its own reservations about the content of that notification. This is in accordance with the non-hierarchical nature of RASFF as a form of risk information exchange envisaged in Article 50 of Regulation 178/2002. However, as the Commission itself is also a member of this network it may legitimately make notifications to the system which directly conflict with notifications made by Member States (author's headnote).

Type
Case Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Vos has identified ‘destabilization’ as a feature of the experimentalist architecture of EU food safety regulation; see Vos, Ellen, “Responding to Catastrophe: Towards a New Architecture for EU Food Safety Regulation?”, in Sabel, Charles F. and Zeitlin, Jonathan (eds), Experimentalist Governance in the European Union, (Oxford: OUP 2010), pp. 151176.Google Scholar

2 OJ 2009 C 312/27.

3 The role of the FVO in overseeing the official controls undertaken by Member States is detailed in Regulation 882/2004 on official controls performed to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules, OJ 2004 L 191/1.

4 BBC News, Dairy's curd banned from Europe, available on the Internet at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/5413598.stm>.

5 RASFF Notification 2006.0375

6 Bánáti, Diana and Klaus, Barbara, “30 Years of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed”, (5) European Food and Feed Law Review (2010), pp. 1021.Google Scholar

7 The FSA was content that batches of cheese made with milk previously identified as being unfit for human consumption had been destroyed and that improvements had been made to the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) procedures, quality controls and specifications for milk intake.

8 Regulation 178/2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety, OJ 2002 L 31/1.

9 General Food Law, Art. 50(3).

10 Ibid., Art. 50(2).

11 Bowland Dairy Products Ltd v. Commission, para. 41.

12 Knowles, Timothy, Moody, Richard and McEachern, Morven G., “European food scares and their impact on EU food policy”, 109 British Food Journal (2007), pp. 4367 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berends, Gijs and Carreno, Ignacio, “Safeguards in food law – ensuring food scares are scarce”, 30 European Law Review (2005), pp. 386405 Google Scholar; European Commission (2001) White Paper on Food Safety, COM(1999) 719 final, 12 January 2000; Shears, Peter, Zollers, Fran and Hurd, Sandy, “Food for thought: What mad cows have wrought with respect to food safety regulation in the EU and UK”, 103 British Food Journal (2001), pp. 6387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Casey, Donal, Lawless, James and Wall, P.G., “A Tale of Two Crises: The Belgian and Irish Pork Dioxin Contamination Incidents”, 112 British Food Journal (2010), (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 General Food Law, Art. 40(3).

15 Coen, David and Thatcher, Mark, “Network Governance and Multilevel Delegation: European Networks of Regulatory Agencies”, 28 Journal of Public Policy (2008), pp. 4971 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eberlein, Burkard and Grande, Edgar, “Beyond delegation: transnational regulatory regimes and the EU regulatory state”, 12 Journal of European Public Policy (2005), pp. 89112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Alemanno, Alberto, Trade in Food: Regulatory and Judicial Approaches in the EC and the WTO (London: Cameron May 2007), at p. 204.Google Scholar

17 General Food law, Art. 53.

18 Olsson, Eva-Karin, “The Dioxin Scandal”, in Larsoon, Sara, Olsson, Eva-Karin and Ramberg, Britta (eds), Crisis Decision Making in the European Union (Stockholm: Swedish National Defence Academy 2005), pp. 3164.Google Scholar

19 Albeit with an entitlement for the Commission itself to act in a provisional way in emergencies, see General Food Law, Art. 53(2).

20 Majone, Giandomenico, “The new European agencies: regulation by information”, 4 Journal of European Public Policy (1997), pp. 262275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 General Food Law, Art. 3(13): “‘risk communication’ means the interactive exchange of information and opinions throughout the risk analysis process as regards hazards and risks, risk-related factors and risk perceptions, among risk assessors, risk managers, consumers, feed and food businesses, the academic community and other interested parties, including the explanation of risk assessment findings and the basis of risk management decisions”.

22 Szawlowska, Karolina, “Risk Assessment in the European Food Safety Regulation: Who is to Decide Whose Science is Better? Commission v. France and Beyond”, 5 German Law Journal (2005), pp. 1295–1274.Google Scholar

23 Chalmers, Damien, “Food for Thought; Reconciling European Risks and Traditional Ways of Life”, 66 Modern Law Review (2003), pp. 532562.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 General Food Law, Art. 30.

25 Alemanno, Alberto, Trade in Food: Regulatory and Judicial Approaches in the EC and the WTO (London: Cameron May 2007), at p. 206.Google Scholar