Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Authority should play a key role in seeking to allay the fears of European Union consumers about purchasing genetically modified foodstuffs, a senior official within the European Commission has claimed. The director general of the Commission’s directorate general for health and consumer protection, Robert Coleman, told a round table in Brussels that the unwillingness of EU consumers to buy GM food is because many are no longer “convinced by….…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
AIRLINES and airports have always claimed to put the comfort and well-being of their passengers to the top of their lists, and many already set out in a charter or other document what standard of service their customers can expect.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
DON’T hold your breath, but it looks as if the European Union may soon be moving away from the worst features of the Common Agricultural Policy. Yes, this has been said many times since Britain joined what we once called the European Economic Community and critics say every reform effort until now has failed – even the ambitious Agenda 2000 reforms could be said to have only really tinkered with the system at the edges.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANZ Fischler has been making a lot of speeches recently. It is not because he has time on his hands, he is in charge of the European Commission’s largest two budgets, agriculture and fisheries after all. Rather it is because he is cross with the Americans, whom he accuses of playing Janus at the WTO.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed at its ministerial meeting in Qatar, to intensify its ongoing agriculture talks, which cover meat and meat products. Ministers laid down a deadline of the next WTO summit, which must take place in 2003, for member governments to propose a complete list of formal concessions they are prepared to make on quotas, tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has published a long-term strategy to combat the presence of PCB’s and dioxins in food, complementing its moves to establish maximum contamination values for these chemicals. For the next five years, Brussels wants to conduct hazard identification, risk assessment and management, research, public information and international co-operation on the problem.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture has been approved by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. Once it is ratified, the treaty will ensure access by all countries to plant genetic resources worldwide, to related knowledge and technologies, plus financing to make use of the agreement.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed to launch a new wide-ranging round of talks on liberalising commerce, negotiations that will include industrial goods, which will be combined with the ongoing discussions on services and agricultural products.

Ministers at the summit in Doha, Qatar, struck a deal after six days of bargaining, with their task being made achievable by the wide-ranging draft communiqué that was drawn up beforehand.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU health and consumer affairs commissioner David Byrne has called for a strategic rethink by the food industry regarding the safety, quality and cost of its products, so that the sector is not driven purely by the desire for low prices.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A LONG-TERM strategy to reduce the amount of PCB’s and dioxins in food and animal feed has been published by the European Commission. Alongside the already announced proposed maximum limits for the chemicals, which EU health ministers are expected to agree on November 15, Brussels has now also suggested actions to take over the next five years regarding hazard identification, risk assessment, risk management, research, public information and international cooperation.…