Food safety is never an easy business. Any exercise in tracing a food product as it progresses across the globe to a supermarket shelf aptly illustrates what faces Europe as it tries to ensure food quality and recover from scares that have shaken the EU to its core. The EU may already have some of the most rigorous safety regulations but BSE, dioxins, sewage sludge used in livestock production and utter confusion over GM foods, are enough to illustrate the pressing need to respond to new threats associated with the food we eat.
The Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Mr David Byrne, is to embark on an ambitious programme of legislative reform. One can look at the extent to which there are wide variations in the way Community legislation on food is implemented and enforced - not to mention the political hurdles likely to face his proposals over coming months. In his White Paper published today, it is especially disturbing to read the extent to which consumers cannot be sure of receiving the same level of protection across the EU.
Just as worrying from an Irish perspective, his initiative coincides with the Commission decision to take the Government to the European Court for "widespread microbiological pollution of group water schemes". It places a question mark over the extent of Irish commitment to food safety. Through setting up its own Food Safety Authority, the Republic was in many ways ahead of the Commission, but through complacency and allowing gross contamination of hundreds of water supplies by sewage and livestock wastes, it has done its reputation in Europe no good.
The proposed European food authority is set to significantly extend the "risk assessment" capability in Europe and to provide the rapid determinations needed when food scares erupt as they inevitably do. It will also be assigned the key role of risk communication to consumers. Many in Britain may consider the authority a side-show in light of recent events. For the EU's independent scientific advisory system - which has worked well - has endorsed the safety of British beef. Moreover, it warned recently of the significant BSE risk beyond Britain. Yet France still chooses to defy its verdicts. French consumers may regard the new authority as an impertinence given the differing opinion of its own food safety body.
Nonetheless, Mr Byrne says he is comforted by the extent of support his proposal has already received from member-state governments. Securing acceptance of the best available scientific advice will be the test of the authority's moral power.
Sometimes, confused and often late scientific decisions on vital issues of food safety have led to calls for the establishment of an advisory authority of the stature of the US Food and Drug Administration. Mr Byrne is proposing to add political accountability yet keep scientists separate from the policy makers. In so doing, he may yet find a European solution to an acute European problem.