THE President of the European Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, last night promised to remove the supervision of food safety from the management of the Union's agriculture directorate.
He said he would also propose to the Commission that a more substantial independent agency should be established to monitor the implementation of EU legislation. Such an agency would also be managed independently from those responsible for originating legislation or managing markets.
Mr Santer admitted there was likely to be strong resistance among ministers to the creation of what would effectively be a body like a US Food and Drugs Administration. "But we will apply all our strength to overcome such reticence and convince member states of the need for such an agency," he said.
Responding to strong criticism of the Commission's handling of the BSE crisis and to its own internal audit of the veterinary services, Mr Santer went a long way to meeting MEPs' demands in proposing to entrust the veterinary services to the consumer affairs directorate presided over by the combative Commissioner Ms Emma Bonino.
Mr Santer was speaking at the European Parliament's special committee of inquiry into BSE, where he resolutely defended the role of his Commission in the management of the crisis.
He vehemently rejected, any suggestion that the Commission had placed the interests of the market ahead of the consumer or had practised a policy of disinformation.
He admitted the committee had done valuable work in highlighting internal management weaknesses in the Commission services.
It had to be recognised, he said, that management of the issue had not been easy in the face of scientific uncertainty, particularly given the conviction at the time that the issue was only an animal health one.
He had insisted from the start, he said, on an approach based purely on science. "The worst possible approach would have been to treat the issue on the basis of political considerations," he said. "That had been the approach of London." He had come under huge pressure from London, he said, but had never succumbed.
