Filenews 25 February 2024 - by Angelos Nicolaou
The Government prioritizes the creation of an independent food safety authority with the aim of strengthening controls, from production to consumption, and ensuring a high level of human health and consumer protection.
This Authority will deal with, inter alia, emergencies concerning food safety. Independent food safety authorities operate in all European countries – except Cyprus – while the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been established and operates at European level.
The creation of the Cyprus Food Safety Authority will be an important offer to the Cypriot citizen, something that seems to have been prioritized by the Presidency with the aim of making the Authority modern and effective for Cyprus to provide the high level of food safety that the EU offers for its citizens.
The creation of the independent Authority requires coordination between the Ministries of Health and Agriculture, from where the various services currently active in Cyprus for the implementation of European legislation on food safety originate. The competent departments and services that are called to cooperate are the General Chemical State Laboratory, the Health Services (Ministry of Health and Municipalities), the Department of Agriculture and the Veterinary Services.
The Government considers it necessary to establish an independent authority and the time for this step is now ripe due to growing concerns about food safety.
It is noted that for the establishment of the Cyprus Food Safety Authority there is a Decision of the Council of Ministers dated . 13/6/2007. Seventeen years later, with instructions from the Presidency, the bill comes out of naphthalene and on the initiative of the General Director of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Christina Giannakis, the implementation of the Authority is promoted with the aim of upgrading the services provided in relation to food (and feed) safety and public health.
In order for the Authority to become operational, all necessary measures must be taken to ensure that:
(a) food produced, prepared, packaged, distributed or sold within the Republic of Cyprus, (b) food imported from third countries and (c) food moved through intra-Community trade, complies with the maximum limits of hygiene and quality of food.
To ensure this objective, all measures reasonably necessary shall be taken to ensure that the food complies with legislation, with the provisions of generally recognised standards, codes of good practice or good manufacturing practice.
In Cyprus in 2003 the Food Safety Council was created as a coordinating body for the planning and coordination of activities for the controls applied by the various services and bodies of the state sector. The Food Safety Board undertakes the collection of data from the implementation of these programmes and assesses the adequacy of the controls carried out by the competent services. However, in the absence of an appropriate legislative framework and implementing powers, it cannot supervise and correct problems and weaknesses since its decisions are not binding on the services involved.
This weakness was identified by the Government just four years after the operation of the Food Safety Council and the Council of Ministers on 13/6/2007 adopted a proposal by the Ministry of Health for the creation of an independent food safety authority with an effective legal framework. This was preceded by a report by a special expert from Ireland invited by the Department of Health to study the food control system and make a recommendation for the possible creation of a food safety authority. The relevant legislation has been drafted and based on it the competent state services will be called upon to offer their services in the implementation of control programs and other activities falling within their competence. The aim, of course, was to stop what is happening today, namely that individual programmes should be defined by the services, on the basis of what each of them considers to be a priority in their field.
However, the process never proceeded, mainly due to objections of the services involved coming from the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment. From time to time the issue came up again but without moving forward, even though the legislation has been ready since 2017 and all that is required is to update it.
The field of food safety is very sensitive, touches on important obligations of Cyprus towards the European Union and is directly related to public health, consumer confidence and a serious impact on the business sector, tourism, with implications for the economy of the country.
The weakness of the Food Safety Council was also identified by the Commissioner of Internal Audit in 2017 who, despite specific suggestions and observations, no action was taken.
Following instructions from the Presidency to the management of the Ministry of Health, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Christina Giannaki, took an initiative with the aim, without delay, to establish and operate a Food Safety Authority.
Meetings have been underway lately with the aim of reinstating the bill for consultation with the services involved. The working group includes a scientific associate of President Christodoulides, as well as a representative of the Republic of Cyprus to EFSA. Subsequently, the final bill that will emerge, after receiving the approval from the Ministry of Finance, will be submitted for legislative scrutiny and finally a proposal will be submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval. The aim is to create an effective Food Safety Authority as soon as possible, with appropriately defined responsibilities, structure and benefit, which will be staffed with a small number of staff, even on secondments, so as not to significantly burden the state budget.
Food bombs on our plates
At times, food safety systems have come under unprecedented pressure with major food crises, most of them deliberate actions aimed at easy but illegal profit, misleading both consumers and food businesses. As a result, products that reach our plates may hide the most serious risks to our health. Dioxins, spongiform encephalopathy, banned colourants, melamine in milk powder, beef has been replaced with horsemeat, and there are other types of fraud involving adulteration of olive oil, honey and alcoholic beverages.
The search by consumers for food at attractive prices due to the economic crisis has led to an increase in cases of fraud in Cyprus as well, with fraudsters taking advantage of the fact that these issues are a low priority by the competent authorities, despite the serious risks they pose to our health, resulting in consumers appearing completely defenceless.
Today, the agencies involved do not enjoy state control. Essentially, they control themselves. This gives them the ability to hide mistakes and omissions. For example, in animal feed, mainly in fish farms, ethoxycin was used as an antioxidant.
Following investigations, EFSA banned its use from June 2020 due to its genotoxicity metabolite. In Cyprus, its use continued until December 2021, after the competent Department of Agriculture did not proceed to a verification check of compliance with the amending European legislation prohibiting the use of ethoxycin.
In fact, the problem was identified after being informed by the supplier of fish feed. Subsequently, fish samples were presented by the Veterinary Services to the General Chemical State Laboratory, the relevant tests were carried out and the substance was found in aquaculture fish consumed by the Cypriot consumer. This example illustrates the lack of control over the implementation of amending European legislation, which would have been prevented by having a Food Safety Authority.
Food of questionable quality
The absence of a Food Safety Authority results in gaps in the coordination of competent authorities in horizontal responsibilities related to food safety. Cyprus is the only EU country that does not have a National Food Safety Authority, since those member states that did not have one, have already created one. Even non-EU countries have created a Food Safety Authority e.g. Albania.
The existence of an ineffective food safety system makes Cyprus a pole of attraction for food or products of dubious quality, a risk that is also maximized due to the economic crisis. It has been found that imported batches of food and/or products that proved problematic were only sent to Cyprus.
The lack of a competent and effective control and coordination body for food safety has meant that food control legislation has not been modernised. Although the problem is tangible and specific, the necessary changes have not been made (the changes have been pending for some years), resulting in cases being lost in the Court due to gaps in food legislation and no penalties being imposed.
Cyprus is the first of the EU member states in cases of cancers at much younger ages than other countries. It should be noted that not only eating habits but also food quality in terms of food safety have an important factor in the development of malignancies. The sampling system needs to be improved, as the existing system has weaknesses e.g. X It cannot be excluded that food manufacturers do not know when and for which product they will be tested.
Problems that have arisen recently with the slaughterhouses in which the Auditor General intervened would have been avoided if there had been a Food Safety Authority.
Taking into account that a large volume of money is circulated for the production and supply of food to the population of Cyprus and that the food control system in Cyprus as it stands today has serious weaknesses, a substrate is created for the development of corruption and profiteering at the expense not only of citizens' pockets but also at the expense of their health and the health of our children.
THE POWERS OF THE AUTHORITY
Based on the draft law prepared in 2017, the Authority will have the following responsibilities: Policy formulation and formulation of food safety strategy, coordination of the design of multiannual control plans required by the European Union as well as national plans and supervision of the implementation of these plans, coordination of activities in the implementation of food law in order to avoid overlaps or gaps, assessment of the adequacy of controls carried out by official bodies, assessment of food-related risks, risk management and communication of information to the competent services and, where necessary, consumer information, assessment of the effectiveness of preventive policy, corrective / improvement measures and related approaches, information and information to consumers on food safety issues, communication/cooperation with other similar authorities of the European Union and especially with the European Food Safety Authority, conducting research programs in collaboration with other state or private organizations.
CHAMPION IN ANTIBIOTIC CONSUMPTION
Cyprus leads among EU countries in the use of antibiotics and pesticides, a fact that could be effectively addressed through surveillance and horizontal measures by the Authority. As far as the excessive use of antibiotics is concerned, this is mainly due to their very frequent use by livestock farms, not to treat diseases affecting animals, but as a precaution against disease. This is the easy solution instead of improving hygiene conditions in production units. As a result, the population of our country records high levels of microbiological resistance to antibiotics.
Suggestions on this problem were made from time to time, even in the context of meetings of the Food Safety Council, but they were never implemented. As far as pesticides are concerned, apart from the excessive use of approved pesticides, there is also the problem of the use of banned and/or non-approved pesticides from the EU, which producers obtain from the occupied territories and are not detected at an early stage (at the production stage), since the control system at the production sites and not only is inadequate.
It is noted that a prohibited pesticide was detected by the General Chemical State Laboratory in wines on the market. This pesticide passed into wine from grapes sprayed with it and was detected by checks on wines on the market. As a result, the SODAP alone rendered 151 tonnes of wine in stock obsolete. This quantity, worth €150,000, was given for biogas production and the amount of €40,000 was given to SODAP as compensation, after the intervention of the former President of the Republic. The control for detection of the prohibited pesticide in all stocks and batches of SODAP was done on the initiative of SODAP and not with control or intervention / suggestion of the competent authorities, as should have been done.
