At a meeting of the EU Aquaculture Advisory Committee in Brussels yesterday (3rd June), Paolo Caricato of DG SANCO was in attendance for the item on the EFSA's opinion on lipophilic toxins. In summary, his points were:
It is difficult for DG SANCO to make a complete assessment before a summary of all the EFSA opinions is adopted by the Commission.
It is important to note that no decisions on regulation will be made before a meeting with Member States in September.
The CRL in Vigo will also be asked to weigh up the pros and cons of changing the regulation based on the EFSA advice - there should also be a review by an independent scientific expert.
The input of NRLs is important - for instance the Italian NRL has produced a report on the PSP limit advice showing that all mollusc exports from Italy would be banned if the EFSA opinion were to be adopted.
It is important to note that the intention of the Commission and the member states is NOT to shut down the industry and that it is true to say that the existing limits and regulations have proven themselves to be effective in protecting EU consumers.
However, new advice must be taken into account and there is a particular problem at a legal level in that there is no set regulation for limits on cooked products.
It is accepted that there is a major question mark over the EFSA model for consumption (400gm per 60kg person)
Another factor which must be considered is that quantitative methods must be developed given the impending ban on the mouse bioassay.
Specifically on the subject of the proposal regarding cooked shellfish, it is important to note that the current regime setting limits for harvesting has protected the consumer - what the Commission must solve is the legislative problem they currently face due to the lack of any limitation for processed shellfish.
In response to this, shellfish producers at the meeting (EMPA and ISA) made strong arguments about the hugely negative consequences of adopting the EFSA oppinion on cooked mussels - arguing that it would lead to a halving of the harvesting levels for all lipophilic toxins, that it discriminated against producers who sell to processing plants, even though virtually 100% of all mussels are cooked before consumption, and that the bureacratic solution of applying the most convenient number to cooked shellfish in order to merely facilitate the demands of inspection authorities would lead to the closure of much of the European shellfish industry. It was also noted by French and Spanish growers that the bioassay was an unsafe method for testing shellfish at such low levels - particularly of AZA - and that the major industries in Europe were a long way from a position where their entire sector could be tested regularly by LCMS at harvest level. ISA pointed out that it was hugely unfair and illogical that a shellfish farmer could face non-payment for harvested product which had passed the biotoxin test in an OPEN bay scenario.
Mr Caricato noted the industry's strong position and advised that Member State lobbying was the best way forward to get these points across. He suggested that potentially one way of solving the crisis was that levels for cooked molluscs could be set at double the limit for raw product instead of working backwards, given that the existing harvest limit of 16 micrograms had proven itself as a strong protector of human health.