COMMON AUTHORISATION PROCEDURE FOR FOOD
ADDITIVES, ENZYMES, FLAVOURINGS AND INGREDIENTS (12179/06, 12180/06,
12181/06, 12182/06)
Letter from the Chairman to Caroline Flint
MP, Minister of State for Public Health, Department of Health
The above documents and your accompanying Explanatory
Memoranda dated 29 August 2006 were considered by Sub Committee
G on 12 October.
We note that your consultation with stakeholders
is under way. We trust that Government is consulting widely and
will be pro-active in ensuring that all interested parties are
encouraged to express their views in good time. We would be grateful
if you would provide us with a full report on the outcome of those
consultations and will retain these proposals under scrutiny pending
your report.
12 October 2006
Letter from the Chairman to Caroline Flint
MP
Your Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum (12180/06)
on the above Proposal was considered by Sub-Committee G (Social
Policy and Consumer Affairs) at its meeting of 19 April 2007.
Further to my letter of 12 October 2006, thank
you very much for informing the Committee of the outcome of your
consultation process.
We agree with the Government that the concerns
expressed by the consumer group concerning the use of comitology
should be allayed by the use of the new "regulatory with
scrutiny" procedure.
Industry respondents expressed concern that
the Commission has up to nine months to put forward a draft Regulation
following the opinion from EFSA. We agree that this does appear
to be a lengthy (although maximum) period but that it is acceptable
as long as it is genuinely used for the purpose of consulting
stakeholders.
We welcome the fact that the Commission will
be obliged to consult with the applicant before making a decision
on what information can be disclosed without compromising the
applicant's commercial position.
The European Parliament has suggested that environmental
considerations be integrated into the authorisation process. We
consider that this is in line with the EU's sustainable development
agenda but we feel also that the impact of this should be assessed
in line with the Better Regulation initiative.
Finally, we conclude that the Government's view
that any system of review should be risk-based is entirely logical.
We are content to release the Proposal from
scrutiny but we would be grateful if you could keep us informed
on developments in Council. We look forward to also to receiving
further information from you on the progress of the other three
proposals within the food improvements agents package.
23 April 2007
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