Comparison of official food safety control systems in member states of the European Union

Abstract

In recent years increasing pressure to limit the powers of the Czech public health authorities in the field of food safety has been noticed. An approach to safe food production and official controls depends on diverse and complex socioeconomic factors in the context of political and legislative framework within which food producers and official controllers exist. Official controls are those activities carried out by the competent authorities (CA) or delegated bodies) in Member States to verify business compliance with the requirements set out in agri-food chain legislation. The presented text compares the effectiveness of national food safety systems in the Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU). Under the current EU legislation, each MS shall appoint the competent authorities responsible for the purposes of European legislation in the field of food safety and for performance of official controls. Member States shall ensure that official controls are carried out regularly, on a risk basis and with appropriate frequency to achieve the objectives set out in the European legislation. For evaluation were used the country profiles of Member States, as published in 2011-2015. From the perspective of the European Commission current system of official controls in the Czech Republic is rated as one of the most effective and least problematic. When comparing various systems in Member States it is not possible to decide which control system is more efficient, i.e. system based on one competent authority or relying on several competent authorities.

External audits and official controls – what’s the difference in their usefulness and credibility?

“…The core similarity is that they both focus on assessing compliance (of activities, processes, products, etc.) with specific criteria (Al-Twaijry, Brierley, & Gwilliam, 2004;Svr cinov a & Janout, 2018). However, in the case of official controls, these criteria arise directly from the law; therefore, their fulfillment is mandatory.…”