Codex Alimentarius Europaeus
The Codex Alimentarius Europaeus is a supranational standard for food safety from 1958. It goes back to the Codex Alimentarius Austriacus of the Austrian politician Hans Frenzel from 1891 and was replaced in 1961 by the international Codex Alimentarius .
history
In the years after the Second World War , the global food trade had developed very strongly. Linked to this, however, were efforts in various regions of the world to set up their own rules for food traffic for each region. This trend towards different requirements for the examination and assessment of the goods was also noticeable between the individual European countries. Such a procedure inevitably led to the establishment of trade barriers between states or regions of the world. Corresponding fears were already expressed publicly in the early 1950s.
As part of a lecture on June 15, 1953 in Bad Neuenahr at the conference of the Research Group of the German Food Industry on The Austrian Food Act , in which he also explained the Austrian Food Code ( Codex Alimentarius Austriacus ), Frenzel presented his idea of a Europe-wide Codex Alimentarius for the first time in front. This codex should be structured in the same way as the Austrian Codex and be created in the same way. Frenzel associated this with the expectation that a regulation applicable to all European countries would not only increase food safety but also facilitate intra-European trade.
Due to the positive response to his suggestions, Frenzel systematically pursued this idea in the following years and promoted it in many lectures. He was particularly supported in this by the International Commission of Agricultural Industries ( Commission Internationale des Industries Agricole et Alimentaire, CIAA ), since business was also very interested in preventing trade barriers.
The Europe-wide coordinating activity in preparation for the establishment of a European codex was taken over by Switzerland, since Austria was still a country occupied by four powers until 1955. From autumn 1957, Austria took over the further coordination activities as a free, neutral country under the leadership of Frenzel.
On April 9 and 10, 1958, the CIAA organized a conference in Paris that dealt exclusively with the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus. Due to the relevant preparatory work, the "European Council of the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus" was founded at this conference. His task was to develop a European food book. Frenzel was elected the first president of this council. The Austrian Codex Alimentarius was used as a model for the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus.
In the following years, up to around 1964, intensive work was carried out on this new work. The working groups that worked on the individual chapters of the food book were made up of representatives from various countries who participated voluntarily in the project. The following countries participated in total: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Greece, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, Hungary and representatives of FAO , WHO , CIAA and ISO .
The progress of the European Codex led the WHO and FAO to intensify their activities with regard to the development of a worldwide Codex. These two UN organizations intended to create an analogous worldwide regulation to prevent trade barriers between world regions. From 1960 onwards there were intensive negotiations between the “European Council of the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus” and the two UN organizations in order to find a way of cooperation between Europe and the UN organizations. The Swiss Prof. Dr. Otto Högl, Frenzel's successor as President of the “European Council of the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus” from 1962, took over the continuation of these negotiations.
The intention was already laid down in the statutes of the European Council of the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus to connect, if possible, with an international organization founded on the basis of international law, since for Frenzel from the beginning it could only be the goal of a worldwide regulation for the purpose of a worldwide free trade in food. The prerequisites for successful negotiations were therefore in place. The “European Council of the European Codex Alimentarius” was also involved in the preparations for the establishment of the AO / WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission .
In 1963 the constituent meeting of the “ Codex Alimentarius Commission” took place in Rome from June 24th to July 3rd . The name was taken from the Austrian or European designation of the corresponding bodies.
The European Council of the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus was integrated into the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 1963 at the constituent meeting as a regional group for Europe with the designation “Advisory Group for Europe often the Joint FAO / WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission”. The first regional group was founded. Today there are coordination groups for all regions of the world based on the European model in the “Codex Alimentarius Commission”.
Regional group for Europe
The regional group for Europe was named FAO / WHO Regional Coordinating Committee for Europe from 1964 after a change in the statutes of the "Codex Alimentarius Commission" . It was not until 1965 that all states that had worked on the European Codex were also reunited in the Codex Alimentarius Commission . After some unanswered questions regarding the statutes and the financing through an amendment to the statutes in 1964, some previously hesitant European states applied for membership in the Codex Alimentarius Commission .
The regional group for Europe initially comprised the states that had collaborated on the European Codex. Today the number of states represented in the regional group for Europe is much larger. Members of the regional group for Europe are: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Estonia, European Union, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Great Britain, Ireland , Iceland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Tajikistan, Czech Republic, Turkey, Ukraine, Hungary, Uzbekistan and Belarus.
Högl initially chaired the regional group for Europe. For the period of office from 1965 Frenzel was elected as chairman. For health reasons, however, he could no longer exercise this chairmanship. His deputy Dr. Richard Wildner was then chairman for a long time. This was followed by another Austrian, Prof. Dr. Herbert Woidich, who, with an interruption due to a Swiss chairmanship, also chaired the regional group for a long time. It was not until the 1980s that other countries took over the chairmanship of the regional group for Europe.
literature
- F. Vojir, E. Schübl, "Part A. Codex Alimentarius Austriacus, Codex Alimentarius Europaeus, Worldwide Codex, Historical Development", in the commemorative publication "120 Years Codex Alimentarius Austriacus (Austrian Food Book), 1891-2011", Federal Ministry of Health (ed .), Pp. 29-166. New Scientific Publishing House, Vienna-Graz, 2011
- "History of the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus", published by the Austrian Association for Public Health, Vienna 1962
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on the worldwide FAO / WHO Codex Alimentarius Federal Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection, Consumer Health Communication Platform, accessed on November 23, 2018
- ↑ F. Vojíř, E. Schübl: Dr. Hans Frenzel - A successful visionary (Codex Alimentarius Europaeus, Worldwide Codex Alimentarius) . Nutrition / Nutrition, Vol. 36 / No. 1, 2012, pp. 29-33 (PDF; 90 kB)
- ↑ F. Vojíř, E. Schübl, I. Elmadfa: The origins of a global standard for food quality and safety: Codex Alimentarius Austriacus and FAO / WHO Codex Alimentarius. In: International journal for vitamin and nutrition research. Volume 82, Number 3, June 2012, pp. 223-227, doi : 10.1024 / 0300-9831 / a000115 , PMID 23258404
- ↑ CCEURO ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
