The European Parliament (EP) has published its Draft Report (COM(2007)0872 – C6-0027/2008 – 2008/0002(COD)) on the EC’s draft Proposal for a Regulation on Novel Foods; the report will be debated during the next meeting of the EP’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) (to be held on the 14^th July 2008).

The Explanatory Statement of the EP’s Draft Report notes that ‘The purpose of the Commission proposal is to amend Regulation (EC) No 258/97 on novel foods, with the aim of simplifying and centralising the procedures for authorising novel foods and placing them on the market. Thus it has been decided that new regulation is necessary. […] The Commission proposal seeks to clarify the definition of novel foods and the associated definitions. The rapporteur endorses this aim, but considers that the Commission has negligently fallen short in achieving it. Its proposal did not include clear definitions, and the rapporteur has therefore clarified the existing definitions and where necessary supplemented them with new ones. These include, for example, a definition of foods derived from cloned animals and foods produced using nanotechnology.

In particular, the EP’s Draft Report considers nanotechnologies and –sciences in the following recommendations:

• change of wording regarding the clarification of foods resulting from new production processes: ‘It must be clear that ifa food is changed by a new production process, such as nanotechnology and nanoscience - about which not enough is yet known to carry out a risk assessment - the food must only be placed on the market if it has been assessed as safe by means of a valid risk assessment.’
• insertion of a specific reference to nanotechnology in Article 3 – Definitions: ‘‘novel food’ means: […] (iii) food to which is applied a new production process - including, but not confined to, foods produced with the aid of nanotechnology -where that production process gives rise to changes in the composition or structure of the food which affect its nutritional value, metabolism or level of undesirable substances’

The next ENVI Meeting will also receive a report form the ENVI Committee delegation to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) (Parma, Italy, 14 April 2008), announcing that ‘due to new legislation, technologies and scientific developments, such as nanotechnology and cloning, the number of [EFSA’s] staff, scientific output and budget will increase.

Follow these links to download the EP’s Draft Report, to download the report of the ENVI Committee delegation to EFSA, or to find out more about the EC’s Regulation on Novel Foods (EC 258/97).