Articles & News

In October 2012, the EU celebrated 20 years of the Single Market created by the Maastricht Treaty. At the same time, the Eurozone economy contracted for the first time since 2009 signalling that the crisis in Europe has still not been overcome. The most significant contraction has been in peripheral Eurozone countries with the unambiguous champion, Greece, already in its fifth year of recession. This is one of the longest recessions in a developed country in history. So, does Greece have reason to celebrate the Single Market’s 20th anniversary? Or is the current crisis connected to Greece’s membership of the Single Market?

The way the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has managed the Séralini case does not meet the standards that should be expected from the “keystone of European Union (EU) risk assessment regarding food and feed safety”.

Over the last week an increasingly unclear and fraught picture of a major European lobbying scandal has been unfolding. “Dalligate” or “snusgate” has been heralded as “the biggest tobacco industry interference in public health policy at the European level”, and led to the unprecedented resignation – or maybe dismissal - of Maltese Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, John Dalli. Given the Commission's normally relaxed attitude to industry lobbying, this was surprising. In fact, this is the first time a Commissioner has been removed over a lobby scandal. Unfortunately there's no reason to believe this is the start of a new, stricter approach. The Commission's messy handling of the case, characterised by improvisation rather than clear and transparent procedures, has raised more questions than it answers. The Commission must urgently end its secrecy around the Dalli case and publish all the facts from the OLAF investigation. Post-Dalligate, the Commission must finally accept the urgent need for far stricter transparency and ethics rules around its relations with lobbyists.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published an ‘external evaluation’ report of the organisation carried out by international consultancy and auditing company Ernst & Young. EFSA proudly presented the conclusions of the report at a press conference in Brussels. EFSA is obliged by its founding regulation to commission an external evaluation of its achievements every six years.