European Food Safety Legal System

There is an old Chinese saying goes that "the people can't live without food". Food is the foundation of the survival and development of human, and food safety is the most critical part. Food safety relates to the health and life safety of people, the economic development and social stability of the nation, and also to the images of government and country. However, with the development of technology, the market economy itself is not able to insure the safety of food, which causes the "market malfunction". Incidents of food safety happen frequently, which needs the measures and intervention of the government. At the meantime, the food safety is becoming a global problem. Regarding with the construction and operation of food safety legal system, the European Union stands a high level, from where China should learn a lot. Therefore, the research of EU's food safety legal system obtains certain theoretical and practical values.This article is divided into six parts.PartⅠis the introduction, which mainly explores the definition of food and food safety, introducing the importance and legislation need of food safety. Further more, this part analyses the reason why we should rearch on EU's food safety, makes general introduction of its legislation and the status quo of legal system research on EU's system.PartⅡexplores EU' legal system of the food safety, that is, the static legislation. The author firstly makes a retrospection on EU's food safety legislation, which can be divided into two stages; secondly, the author elaborates on the formation of EU's food safety legislation, by focusing on several important legislations, which are Green Paper on Food Safety, White Paper on Food Safety, Regulation 178/2002 (EU) ; thirdly, the author makes exploration on the characteristics of EU's legislation on food safety; finally, the author introduces the basic principle of EU's legislation on food safety.PartⅢcontains the safeguard mechanism of the enforcement of EU's food safety. On the organizational safeguard, the author states the decision-making, execution and operation of advisory organization in EU's food safety legislation, including EU committee, FVO and European Food Safety Authority; on the law enforcement mechanism, there are several important mechanisms in EU's food safety legal system, including Risk Evaluation Mechanism, Rapid Alert System on Food and Feed, Traceable Mechanism, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point.PartⅣmakes evaluation of EU's food safety legal system, the author elaborates on the execution of EU's food safety legal system from both domestic and foreign prospects, as well as the execution of WTO agreements, which mostly concerns the dynamic operations. The evaluation starts with the analysis of EU's food safety legislation and operation, makes conclusion of the characteristics of the system, lying the foundation of China's reference.After finishing the introduction and evaluation of EU's food safety legal system, PartⅤexplores on the China's reference of EU's experiences. The author firstly analyses the status quo of food safety legislation in China, with its main focus on the problems in the legislation and enforcement. Furthermore, the author explores the exact places where references can be made, and makes suggestions to the new food safety system, including the amendment to the Food Safety Law.PartⅥis the conclusion.