Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle

Speaking Notes

Minister, Herr Präsident, dear Helmut, Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure and honour to address you on this very auspicious occasion. It marks ten years of significant achievements by the Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (BVL) whose birthday coincides with a few others: the BfR, the General Food Law and of course EFSA. My intervention has been preceded by some wonderful music but of course the most beautiful music to my ears lies in the title of your conference: protecting consumers from farm to fork! Although EFSA and the BVL wear two different hats so to speak – that of risk assessor and risk manager respectively – we share many common goals, not least that of protecting public health. 

Science is at the very heart of our organisations and in our different ways we are both consumers of science. Anyone who comes to Parma looking for EFSA’s laboratories will be disappointed. EFSA is not a research organisation, yet we rely on the fruits of scientific research – validated scientific data and information – to inform our risk assessments. Similarly, the BVL – as a risk manager in the field of food safety – is dependent on reliable scientific evidence to underpin its decision making.

Of course, while EFSA has the relatively straight forward task of scientifically assessing risk (not that there is anything straight forward about it!), the job of the risk manager is not quite so simple. You have other factors of a societal, economic or ethical nature to take into consideration. While the founding legislation of both our organisations separates the functions of risk assessment and risk management, they also recognise that there must be dialogue between both parties if the system is to be effective. While they perform different roles, it is essential that they talk to each other to ensure for example that the framing of questions is fully understood and that scientific advice is timely and fit for purpose.

There are many ties that bind our work, not least the sharing of expertise. EFSA relies heavily on the availability of scientific expertise from the national food safety agencies without which we simply could not operate. I would like to thank Helmut and his staff at the BVL who, like the BfR and other Federal research institutes, share their expertise with EFSA – and through us, with the rest of Europe – for the public good. Your experts can be found on our Panels and working groups and we benefit greatly from them. I would like to say a big “Vielen Dank” to all of the German experts who contribute to EFSA’s work; your contribution is greatly valued. Of course, the German contribution goes far beyond our scientific bodies and we have benefited greatly from, among others, the participation of Matthias Horst on our Management Board in recent years. Again, many thanks to you Matthias for helping to guide the organisation in its formative years.

Our common origins reflect the discord that existed during the dark years of the BSE and other similar crises which may now seem a dim and distant memory to many, except for those of us working in food safety at that time. For us, we shall not forget the deep concerns of our citizens or the state of near collapse in the European beef trade.

I was Director General for Food with the French Agriculture Ministry during the turbulent years of the BSE crisis and I experienced at first hand the damage that was being done to the reputation of European food and to relations between Member States. So I am sure I speak for all of us when I say that it is a great source of pride for Europe to see how far we have moved on. The enactment of the General Food Law, which of course also established EFSA, was indeed a pivotal moment in the history of and, since then, Europe has successfully implemented the Codex Alimentarius recommendation to give full consideration to scientific risk assessments before decisions are reached.

The deliberate decision by European legislators to separate science from politics and to elevate the role of science in the decision-making process mirrors events here in Germany with the establishment of the BVL and BfR. With the wisdom of hindsight, the approach of the legislators might seem obvious but in 2002 it was a very courageous step. We can see in many of the debates that exist today that the scientific underpinning of the decision-making process is still questioned by some who, for whatever reason, have difficulty accepting the outcomes of the trusted, independent scientific process which is fundamental to the protection of public health. One of the many positive outcomes of the General Food Law is that Europe has invested significantly in risk assessment and we are now reaping the rewards. Allow me to cite just a few examples: in particular the number of BSE cases in Europe – one of the key drivers for EFSA’s establishment – has dropped from more than 2000 in 2002 to just 28 in 2011. The coordinated, evidence-based approach to curtailing BSE has proven successful both in terms of reducing the prevalence of the disease as well as in restoring consumer confidence. In contrast to the public anxiety over Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease in the late ‘90s, a 2010 survey showed that only 2% of EU consumers considered BSE to be a risk. Of course, Europe cannot be complacent and EFSA will continue to support the Commission’s TSE Roadmap with scientific advice to ensure that there is no re-emergence. We are also making significant progress on a number of zoonotic diseases which remain a significant threat to European public health. For example the ongoing reduction in human Salmonella cases, which have been halved in the EU in the period 2004 to 2009, shows what coordinated control programmes can achieve.

The General Food Law has revolutionised the sharing of data across Europe. Reliable data underpin our risk assessments and are critical in performing exposure assessments. Thanks to the willingness of Member States to share information from their national control systems, EFSA is able to monitor a wide range of contaminants including for example veterinary drug residues, dioxins, antimicrobial resistance and pesticide residues. The monitoring and analysis of these data is an important tool in protecting European public health in an area which we know is of concern to our citizens.

In the decade since EFSA was established, Europe has experienced a number of emergency situations but, working together, we have been able to contain them and limit their impact. In the interconnected world in which we live, a crisis in one Member State can overnight become a priority for all. Together, we have developed our crisis preparedness procedures and we test them annually with Member States and the European institutions to ensure they are fit for purpose. Moreover, we put them into practice in real-life situations on a number of occasions every year. Such was the case here in Germany last year with the E. coli (EHEC) outbreak which had such tragic consequences. It was resolved thanks to the cooperation between the European key players (EFSA, ECDC and SANCO), the 12 relevant Member States and the German partners and in particular BVL. The crisis illustrated once again that the European food market is so highly integrated that EU-level coordination is essential. It also emphasised the importance of the pan-European scientific networks which EFSA has built and coordinated over the past decade.

Crises also emphasise the importance of effective communication, a joint responsibility of risk assessors and risk managers and the second pillar of EFSA’s mandate. When one considers the diversity of the European population and the different regional perceptions of risk, EU-level risk communication is not easy. As the complexity of risk assessment increases, we are challenged to communicate the uncertainties and limitations of our risk assessments and to contextualise risk. To do so, we rely on close collaboration with the national agencies and I would like to thank the communication staff at the BVL for their valued cooperation.

While collectively Europe can take pride in its achievements, we know there are challenges ahead. Many factors are influencing our work: scientific advances, new technologies, new legislation and others more global in nature such as the ongoing liberalisation of trade, concerns over the sustainability of food production, socio-demographic shifts and climate change. To that list we can add the global obesity epidemic which shows little sign of abating. Faced with the prospect of an upsurge in health care costs related to chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, Europe is challenged to adopt effective nutrition policies. It is vital that those policies are based on accurate information on what our citizens are eating and the composition of their food. The food consumption databases we compile with the support of Member States are doing just that and we are confident that our collective efforts will assist policy makers in tackling this seemingly intractable issue.

Unsurprisingly, our risk assessment work is growing in complexity; our portfolio has evolved since 2002 to include more risk-benefit and environmental assessments and evaluations of efficacy such as our work on health claims. As we are finding for example with the low-dose effect hypothesis, complex risk assessments take time and can cause frustration among the public who understandably seek quick responses from those in authority.

EFSA must also continue to develop its role in the post-authorisation evaluation of regulated products: it is not good enough to put a product on the market and forget about it. As we are doing with GMOs, we will continue to monitor the safety of products on the market and ensure that industry provides us with data that are fit for purpose to perform effective risk assessments.

With the current economic context, our operating environment is tough and public trust in science can at times be delicate. With science moved centre-stage in the decision making process, the level of public scrutiny on EFSA’s science and those who deliver it has increased. Just as risk managers need to communicate the factors – scientific and non-scientific – taken into account in their decisions, we too are challenged to increase the transparency of our risk assessments work and we have taken a raft of initiatives to do so.

But while there are challenges ahead, we have grounds for optimism. We know that the investment in scientific risk assessment will stand us in good stead over the coming decade and that many scientific advances hold great promise. The newer toxicological methods, for example, will provide quicker and more accurate data and reduce the need for animal testing. Furthermore, the structures for cooperation across the EU and globally are more advanced and we can all benefit from available knowledge. We can also take encouragement from the fact that governance systems in the food sector, unlike others, are relatively well developed in relation to, for example, harmonised standards, arbitration procedure and political oversight.

Zum Schluss möchte ich dem BVL für seine geschätzte Zusammenarbeit danken und wünsche Ihnen einen schönen Geburtstag und viel Erfolg für die nächsten 10 Jahre.

(I would like to finish by thanking the BVL for its valued cooperation. I wish you a very Happy Birthday and every success for the next ten years.) 

Published: 5 November 2012