The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was established in 2002 in compliance with Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 on the General Food Law, known as Founding Regulation, to provide scientific advice and scientific and technical support for the Community's legislation and policies related directly or indirectly with food and feed safety (Article 22(2)). All advice and information must be independent and shall contribute to the high level of protection of humans, animals and the environment. Article 61 of the Founding Regulation requires that EFSA goes through regular independent evaluation. Following the recent update with the adoption of the Transparency Regulation in 2019, the Commission shall evaluate by 2026 EFSA’s performance in relation to “its objectives, mandate, tasks, procedures and location, in accordance with Commission guidelines”, and every 5 years. In this respect, the Commission has launched a public consultation to collect evidence.
Considering the key role that EFSA has in the assessment of pesticides, as well as in the production of opinions, guidance documents and risk assessment methodologies, in this document PAN Europe provides its feedback on EFSA’s performance during 2017-2024.