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Health Strategy

3. Protection of Consumers’ Health

To support the health, safety and confidence of Europe’s citizens, the European Commission in 2005 proposed the Health and Consumer protection Strategy.

In March 2007 the Commission presented proposals for a more specific Consumer Policy Strategy for 2007-2013. The strategy sets out the challenges, role, priorities and actions of EU consumer policy for this period.

The overall objectives of the Strategy are:

• to empower EU consumers. Putting consumers in the driving seat benefits citizens and significantly boosts competition. Empowered consumers need real choices, accurate information, market transparency and the confidence that comes from effective protection and solid rights.

• to enhance EU consumers’ welfare in terms of price, choice, quality, diversity, affordability and safety. Consumer welfare is at the heart of well-functioning markets.

• to protect consumers effectively from the serious risks and threats that cannot be left to individuals. A high level of protection against these threats is essential to consumer confidence.

The following priorities of the Consumer Strategy specifically concern the health and safety of citizens:

• monitoring of consumer markets and national consumer policies, with a focus on developing indicators and statistics, national benchmarks, and collecting data on, for instance, accidents and injuries, and the risk associated to products and services;

• consumer protection regulation: this priority includes the Review of the Consumer Acquis (see separate Communication Plan), the review of the Timeshare Directive, the proposal for a new Consumer Credit Directive, and reporting on the Directive on Distance Marketing of Consumer Financial Services. The Commission will also report on the operation of the General Product Safety Directive (GPSD), with a focus on better standards;

• protection of EU consumers in international markets: the Commission will ensure the follow-up to recent agreements with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China (AQSIQ). It will seek to negotiate other international agreements on product safety, under the provisions of the CPC regulation, with third countries. It will follow closely accession negotiations with candidate countries to ensure that consumer policy is duly taken on board, and keep working in international forums such as the OECD committee on consumer policy and within the EU neighbourhood policy.

Food Safety

In the field of food safety, full EU harmonisation has been more or less achieved in the internal market. The European Union has agreed on the “from farm to fork” legislation - a detailed set of laws that tackles food safety, hygiene as well as animal health and increasingly also animal welfare rules.

The central goal of the European Commission's food safety policy is “to ensure a high level of protection of human health and consumers' interests in relation to food, taking into account diversity, including traditional products, whilst ensuring the effective functioning of the internal market.”

The Commission's guiding principle, primarily set out in its White Paper on Food Safety from January 2000, is to apply an integrated approach from farm to table covering all sectors of the food chain, including feed production, primary production, food processing, storage, transport and retail sale. The food safety initiatives were prompted by the series of food crises in Europe in the 1990s.

From 2002, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) carries the key responsibility in EU’s risk assessment regarding food and feed safety. Its creation coincided with the establishment of Food Law regulations for the EU.

EFSA works in close collaboration with national authorities as well as consumer groups, non-governmental organizations, and market operators such as farmers, food manufacturers, distributors or processors and scientists to exchange views and information. EFSA provides independent scientific advice and communication on existing and emerging risks; it is up to the member states, the European Commission and the European Parliament to then make the necessary risk management decisions.

Chemicals in the EU: REACH

In their daily lives, Europeans encounter hundreds of chemicals every day. The safety of these chemicals for human health has not always been scientifically measured. REACH, the Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals, entered into force on 1st of June, 2007, to provide additional information on chemical substances, to ensure their safe use, and to ensure competitiveness of the European industry.

The main goals of REACH are “to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the risks that can be posed by chemicals, the promotion of alternative test methods, the free circulation of substances on the internal market and enhancing competitiveness and innovation.”

The European Chemicals Agency ECHA, located in Helsinki, Finland, manages the REACH processes and ensures consistency across the European Union.

REACH makes industry responsible for assessing and managing the risks posed by chemicals and providing appropriate safety information to their users. The EU can take additional measures on highly dangerous substances, where there is a need for complementing action at the European level.