Food safety: additive in feedingstuffs and in drinking water for animal nutrition

The Commission can accept 24 amendments out of 57 adopted by the European Parliament at first reading. These amendments improve or bring more clarification to the Commission's initial proposal. They refer in particular to: - the clarification of the status of coccidiostats - (inclusion of histomonostats and presentation of a report on the use of and coccidiostats and histomonostats before 1 January 2008); - the flexibility of the authorisation procedure, in particular concerning the extension to minor species and the extension to further categories of animals; - the clarification of the authorisation procedure, in particular concerning the steps and delays to be followed by the applicant, the Commission and the EFSA; - the improvement of transparency and traceability of additives and facilitates communication during the authorisation procedure; - indication of specific provisions for additives in pet food; - mixtures of feedingstuffs to be sold directly to the final user. Concerning the amendments accepted in principle, in part and/or subject to re-wording, these concern: - the extension to other substances : this amendment foresees in its first part, an extension for silage agents. This extension can be accepted because the scope of Directive 70/524/EEC is vague and therefore there is no uniform application in the MS concerning silage agents; - phasing out of antibiotics used as growth promoters : this amendment indicates that the antibiotics used as growth promoters still authorised on the date of entry into force of the Regulation shall be deleted from the Register from that date; - improvement of transparency : improves the transparency of the procedure. It is important that the applicant is involved in all decisions concerning his application and particularly concerning the time frame of the risk assessment and the provision of new information. On the other hand, the amendments not accepted by the Commission are considered to undermine the aim to sustain the overall Community legislation as more transparent, less complex and efficient. Lastly, certain technical changes have been made to the text to ensure its conformity with the Interinstitutional Agreement of 22 December 1998 on common guidelines for the quality of drafting of Community legislation.�