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| Conference Room Document 79 | |
second fao/who global forum of food safety regulators
Bangkok, Thailand, 12-14 October 2004
(Prepared by Romania)
During the last years, Romania, as a candidate country to European Union, has achieved much progress in the transposition of the Community in the field of foodstuffs.
According to the commitments assumed through the position Document during the negotiation process and in order to approach in a unitary way in the field of food safety, the legislative approaches were initiated to promote and adopt a legislative document which may lead to the establishment and organization of a structure corresponding to the European model.
In this purpose, Romanian Parliament, supporting the Government initiative, has adopted the Law 215/14 June 2004 which provides that the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA) is established, as an authority for settling in a sanitary veterinary and food safety fields, specialized organism of central public administration, with juridical personality, under Government sub-order and the Prime - Minister coordination, through Prime- Minister Office.
The Parliament authorizes ANSVSA to coordinate at national level all Codex activities through the Codex contact point and the Operational Secretariat, which are functioning in the structure of the authority.
ANSVSA is the national coordinator of Rapid Alert System and also the contact structure with the European Food Safety Authority and act based on functional and decisional autonomy according to the commitments assumed by Romania in international relations.
The entire structure of the new authority is in the process of the specific institutional construction done in order to achieve the food safety, from the production of the raw material to the food distribution toward consumer.
A General Division for Food Safety was created at the central level (35 specialists) and 42 counties services for food safety (10 specialists/each) are subordinating structures with specific responsibilities in food safety field.
Many specialists in chemistry, bio-chemistry, biotechnology, food technologies and human doctors have been employees, but training courses are needed, especially understanding the recently EU regulations.
The Institute of Hygiene and Veterinary Public Health and the 6 zonal laboratories subordinated to the ANSVSA were equipped during the last year with high performance equipment and apparatus for detecting the contamination level in the products of animal and vegetal origin, specific methods to the modern equipment being introduced in the framework of these.
National reference laboratories and 3 zonal laboratories are accredited in accordance with international standard ISO 17025.
The counties laboratories (42) are able to face the requirements on physical, chemical and microbiological analysis for the animal and non- animal products origin.
The members of the Scientific Council are scientists in the fields related to ANSVSA activity. The Council can be consulted by the Authority regarding the norms issued in this field.
Among the main responsibilities of the Council are:
The Scientific Council is organized in 4 scientific commissions, having at least three members each:
General principles of food safety stipulated in the Regulation no. 178/2002/EC, such as independence, scientific based decisions and transparence are already in place in our country by the adoption of the Law 150/ 2004 "Food safety Law".
Due to the fact that certain provisions on rapid alert system, crisis cells and defining the responsibilities were not included in the Law 150/2004, any additional requirements have been introduced in a new law adopted by the Parliament, Law 560/2004.
New European Commission Regulations on the hygiene and official control of foodstuffs (R 852/2004, R 853/2004, R 854/2004, R 882/2004) are in the process of transposition, being approved in the first semester of 2005.
The new authority is a governmental body responsible for controls along the entire food chain, from primary production to consumer.
The market surveillance activity in the sanitary veterinary field consists in controlling the units, which are producing, processing, depositing, transporting and marketing products of animal origin according to the provisions of the “Program of surveillance, prophylaxis and combat/fight against animal diseases and prevention of the transmission of diseases from animals to humans and environmental protection”, and in inspections regarding the sanitary legislation implementation and the units level and also the checking through laboratory tests the food celebrity.
The inspection activity has been accomplished according to the control actions program transmitted into the field by the General Department for Inspection, Control, Border Inspections and Veterinary Institutes Coordination and it is assured at the country level by the veterinarians from the Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Circumscriptions and local Sanitary Veterinary Circumscriptions under the coordination of local Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Departments.
Based on the inspections, the veterinarians from the General Inspection, Control, Border Inspection and Veterinary Institutes Coordination Department have evaluated and checked the application of the instructions and dispositions of the central sanitary veterinary authority, and also the implementation at local level of the provisions of the veterinary legislation in all units which are producing, processing, depositing, transporting and marketing food of animal origin.
During 01.01.2003 – 30.06.2004 veterinarians from the General Inspection, Control, Border Inspection and Veterinary Institutes Coordination Department of central sanitary veterinary authority and from local Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Agencies carried out 6584 control activities
Currently, we are in the process of the control activities implementation for the non- animal origin products.
As a priority, the transposition of the legislation on contaminants is in the plan for putting in practice till the end of this year.
An evaluation process of the all units for non animal products from our country will be started in the immediate next period.
Our policy regarding food safety control system is to be based on risk analyses and prevention oriented.
In the same time, we take care of the accreditation of national food laboratories.
It is still early days to evaluate the experience, but some conclusions on immediate actions to take may be: