Food Safety Governance

This book offers a governance framework for achieving greater integration of science, precaution and public involvement for European food safety. The framework gives practical advice to reconcile complex and conflicting food safety demands. This book offers a detailed analysis and a set of carefully measured suggestions towards achieving greater integration of science, precaution, and public involvement in current arrangements for European food safety governance. The devised governance framework provides a distinctive system of methodologies, participatory processes, and institutional configurations that demonstrates practical advice of how complex and conflicting food safety demands might be reconciled. At the core of the suggestions for procedural reform is a design with four governance stages (framing, assessment, evaluation, management, with participation and communication as cross-cutting activities), and an organisation into four assessment and management tracks distinguishing between risk-, precaution-, concern- and prevention-based approaches. In addition, the book suggests an innovative food safety interface structure designed to improve the politics-science-society coordination throughout the governance process. working mechanisms and to develop the overall governance framework in which we operate. Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle Executive Director European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Parma, March 2008 Acknowledgements This book and the General Framework for the Precautionary and Inclusive Governance of Food Safety that it presents and critically discusses have grown out of research undertaken within one of the subprojects (work package 5) of the research project SAFE FOODS, ‘Promoting Food Safety through a New Integrated Risk Analysis Approach for Foods’. The Integrated Project SAFE FOODS has been funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme (April 2004 to June 2008) and coordinated by Dr H.A. Kuiper and Dr H.J.P. Marvin of RIKILT-Institute of Food Safety at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands. Subproject 5 of SAFE FOODS has dealt with institutional aspects of food safety governance with a focus on ways (procedural and structural mec- nisms) to improve the implementation of precaution, participation and a politi- science interface, and has been coordinated by the editors of this book. The General Framework and this book have been a collaborative effort of subproject 5 in which all contributors to the first part of this book were involved. We have very much appreciated this exceptionally fruitful cooperation. It has always been both greatly intellectually inspiring (with many intensive, focused discussions) and very pleasant (highly cooperative and reliable).