The Commission establishes a working group to strengthen food safety controls on imports

The European Commission has established a task force to maintain and strengthen the EU’s capacity to ensure that imports comply with Union standards, while supporting employment and growth for EU producers.

The task force will focus in particular on food and feed safety, pesticide residues and coordinated EU follow-up measures on specific imported products. It will bring together the technical expertise of the Commission and Member States and contribute to:

• greater harmonisation of import controls across the EU;
• developing recommendations for joint action between the Commission and Member States;
• identifying where additional administrative or regulatory measures are needed to strengthen controls.

The central objective of the European Commission’s food safety policy is to ensure the highest levels of protection for human, animal and plant health, guaranteeing safe and nutritious food for EU consumers, as well as the highest standards for animal feed.

Strict import rules on food and feed hygiene, consumer safety and animal and plant health are designed to ensure that all imports meet the same high standards as EU products. Import controls are essential to verify that food and feed comply with the relevant requirements. EU rules apply to all products sold in the EU, whether they are produced domestically or imported.

Context

The official presentation of the task force took place in the margins of the Council meeting on 26 January and builds on the dialogue on the implementation of import controls held last December, when the Commission announced a strengthening of its measures in this area.

The European Union has robust food and feed safety legislation in place to ensure that food and feed imported from third countries is safe for our citizens. National authorities are responsible for carrying out controls on imports from third countries to assess their compliance with EU food and feed safety standards. The Commission carries out audits in third countries to assess their systems and reliability, while working closely with Member States’ veterinary and customs authorities.

More information: European Commission