welcomes the fact that the general plan on risk communication, as set out in the Commission's proposal, takes into account risk perceptions, and stresses in this regard that it is very important to raise awareness among the general public about concepts such as "danger" and "risk";
if independent researchers are not able to publish their findings, there will be no incentives for them to cross-check the results of a study used in the EFSA risk assessments;
supports the proposal to set up a register of all studies managed by EFSA, which should make publication bias and withholding of important safety information more difficult;
points out that public trust is one of the most important explanatory variables in the public's perceptions of risk. If the public trusts policymakers or regulators, they will perceive risks to be less than when they do not trust them.
In this new regulation, the Parliament and the Council amended several points concerning the election process and composition of the future EFSA board, in line with the recommendations given in Repasky's opinion, which suggested that Each Member State should nominate its own representative and alternate and that the Commission nominates two members as well as the European Parliament, while four members represent the interests of civil society and the food chain.
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
- believes that the European Commission's initiative is a move in the right direction but doubts persist about whether the proposed changes will enable an independent scientific scrutiny of studies and data used in the risk assessments of regulated products and substances;
- highlights the fact that citizens and other stakeholders have raised concerns about the transparency and independence of industry generated studies and data used by EFSA in its risk assessments in the context of authorisation procedures for regulated products or substances;
- notes that if independent researchers are not able to publish their findings, there will be no incentives for them to cross-check the results of a study used in the EFSA risk assessments;
- supports the proposal to set up a register of all studies managed by EFSA which should make publication bias and withholding of important safety information more difficult;
- points out that public trust is one of the most important explanatory variables of the public's perceptions of risk . If the public trusts policymakers or regulators, they will perceive risks to be less than when they do not trust them;
- welcomes the fact that the general plan on risk communication, as set out in the Commission's proposal, takes into account risk perceptions and stresses in this regard that it is very important to raise awareness among the general public about concepts such as "danger" and "risk", and this at all levels of government, including at the level of regional and local authorities.