In the White Paper on Food Safety of 12 January 2000 the European Commission announced a series of initiatives to improve and complete the legislation on food and feed controls. In this regard, a proposal was adopted by the Commission on 5 February 2003.

This proposal establishes a clear EU framework for a control system, in which the respective responsibilities of the Member States and the Commission are systematically set out. It takes into account the general principle that all parts of the food production chain must be subject to official controls. Furthermore, it provides for a common approach with regard to controls on imports of food and feed from third countries.

Regulation (CE) N° 882/2004 on official controls performed to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council on 29 April 2004.

The current control system will continue to apply until the new system becomes applicable as from 1 January 2006. At that time, the following Directives that are currently in place will be repealed and replaced by the provisions of the new Regulation:

N° 70/373/EEC (sampling and analysis - official control of feedingstuffs), N° 95/53/EEC (official inspections - animal nutrition), N° 89/397/EEC and N° 93/99/EC (official control of foodstuffs).