Food safety has become one of the principal concerns of governments worldwide in recent years after a series of controversies alerted consumers and producers to the dangers posed by a rich variety of sources. It is reckoned to be the subject to which the outgoing European Commission devoted most time. Now its successor - with the Irish Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, in charge of the portfolio - has another food alarm to contend with. The French authorities admitted over the weekend that some French animal-feed processing plants have been using untreated sewage, residues from septic tanks and effluent from animal carcasses in the preparation of feed for pigs and poultry.
The subject was first raised in the French satirical magazine Le Canard Enchaine last June, when it reported that three factories, one near Toulouse and the other two in Brittany, had been using such material, according to a document prepared for the consumer affairs ministry. The report was ignored at the time but taken up last week in a German television documentary which included film shot in one of the factories. The French government has admitted several more factories were involved but says all are now complying with regulations. This was after a German supermarket chain withdrew French chicken from its shelves. Similar action was taken by a couple of French chains and demands made in Belgium that French meat be stopped at the border.
The European Commission has called for an urgent response from France, in keeping with the early-warning scheme agreed in June after Belgium's dioxin crisis and the BSE epidemic in Britain. It is to send inspectors to the factories. In his reply to questions from MEPs about how he will conduct his portfolio Mr Byrne gives top priority to food safety, which is likely to be the most active part of it. Another Irish connection is through the EU's Food and Veterinary Office, based in Grange, Co Dublin, where technical research and monitoring will be carried out. Looking ahead Mr Byrne sees much merit in the proposal to set up an EU food and drugs authority along the lines of the powerful institution in United States.
Given the centrality of food safety there is strong and spontaneous support among European public opinion for an active regulatory policy, adequate to the intensive industrialisation of production and the competitive pressures that bear upon it. Even those most involved in the industry welcome regulation in the interests of market credibility. Consumer groups have gone further to insist that the policy regime be strengthened further. High politics are involved as the US and the EU square up for a confrontation over genetically-modified foods.
Without a credible regulatory regime in place there is a danger that policy will be set unacceptably by reaction to the latest food scare. It must be based firmly on the best available scientific research - giving due weight to the principle that safety comes before profit.