Legal debate on food security

2001/06/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Dietetika/Elikagaiak

On the day of Europe, the University of Deusto organized the debate ‘Europe before food security’. In fact, in recent times serious health problems have arisen with great social repercussions such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, listeriosis, foods contaminated with dioxin or foot and mouth disease, although it does not affect human health.

Beatriz Pérez de las Heras, director of the European Institute of Studies, has analyzed community regulations. In its opinion, the European Union has the responsibility to guarantee the quality of food, and for this, despite the fact that since the 1960s it has created numerous standards, control bodies and specialized areas, the latest crises have revealed the defects of this system. These include the lack of coordination between States and the Union and the impossibility of providing a rapid and effective response. Therefore, in January 2000, the European Commission presented the White Paper to develop a new legislation on food security. The most important proposal proposed is the creation of a European Food Organization that would be launched in 2002. However, the White Paper reported that it has many lagoons.

In addition, he opted for biological foods and mentioned the existing grants and standards for biological agriculture. The demand for this type of food is increasing, while it occurs backwards with transgenic foods. If in 1998 the European Union authorized maize and soybeans transformed for human consumption, in 2000, at the request of consumers, regulated a specific labeling for these transgenic products.

The professor of Civil Law, Inmaculada Herbosa, for her part, spoke about the responsibility for food damages. In spite of the apparent consumer protection, on many occasions the cause-effect relationship is difficult to prove or is not clear to who to attribute the blame, sometimes it does not receive compensation.

For his part, Jesús Llona, president of the Eusko Label of Food Quality in the 1990s, mentioned spontaneous encephalopathy and denounced the errors in the treatment of the crisis. On the other hand, it showed an attitude contrary to the behavior of the media, both at this moment and before the last health problems caused by food, which have created a confused and distrustful environment. Finally, he proposed to teach school children the bases of food.