why the EFSA is not a European-style Food and Drug Administration?
There have been recurrent pleas calling for the creation of a Community food regulatory agency long before the outbreak of the food scares that have outraged Europe. At least until the mid-1990s, such suggestions were seriously taken into consideration by the EC Commission[120]. They were subsequently abandoned[121] before being revamped by the President of the EC Commission Jacques Santer when, appearing before the European Parliament Temporary Committee of Enquiry into BSE, he declared: “Our job is and will no doubt remain, in a spirit of subsidiary, to monitor the monitoring mechanisms set up by our member states and their operation, even if, personally I think that in the long term the creation of an agency modeled on the American Food and Drug Administration should not be ruled out”[122]. Only a month later, facing a motion of censure from the European Parliament for alleged mismanagement of the BSE crisis[123], the same Santer seemed to be more determined about the need to establ
