Within a package of measures adopted by the European Commission to modernise, consolidate and simplify the legislation covering the food chain, Regulation (EU) 2017/625 – amending certain EU legal acts and repealing certain other EU legal acts currently governing official controls and related matters – integrates into a single comprehensive legislative framework the rules applicable to official controls (OCs) and other official activities performed to ensure the application – along the food production chain – of food and feed law, rules on animal health
and welfare, plant health and plant protection products. A number of new/revised terms, definitions, and provisions, introduced in the recitals or the legislative part of Regulation (EU) 2017/625, are noteworthy to human and veterinary public health. Among the 58 terms defined in the Regulation, the novel term ‘Union agri-food chain legislation’ (third recital) designates a concept which includes all the Union rules whose correct application has to be verified by Member States’ competent authorities according to the provisions set out in the Regulation itself. The introduction of this comprehensive legislative framework, relevant to the overall management of official controls (OC) in the EU, has made it necessary to adapt/replace or introduce certain (subordinate) terms and related definitions in the legislative part of Regulation (EU) 2017/625. In this paper, a selection of these terms – i.e. ‘operator’, ‘goods’, ‘animals’, ‘competent authorities’, ‘official control’, ‘rating’, ‘other official activities’, ‘official certification’, ‘hazard’ and ‘risk’ – will be further considered and discussed for their relevance to public health. The ‘Union agri-food chain legislation’ framework may represent a conceptual milestone in the pathway to the realisation of the ‘One Agri-Food Health’ holistic approach aiming at protecting, along the agri-food chain, health of humans, animals and plants, animal welfare and the environment.
