Crisis coordinators
Each Member State, EFSA and the Commission shall designate one crisis coordinator and his/her alternate to carry out the tasks set out in Annex I. The Commission shall keep up-to-date the names and contact details of the designated ‘crisis coordinators’ and their alternates. The crisis coordinators shall hold regular meetings, at least yearly, organised by the Commission with the purpose to present initiatives at the Union level, share national contingency plans and provide follow-up and evaluate the management of recent crises in accordance with Article 22.
Alerts and information systems
The Commission shall interlink the Early Warning and Response System (EWRS) with other Union-level alerts and information systems, including the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF). Data submission through the alert networks shall be further harmonised.
Laboratories
The Commission and the Member States shall ensure the maintenance of a network of European and national reference laboratories, and other official laboratories, in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2017/625, ready to provide swift and high-quality analytical support as required for most significant food- and feed-borne hazards.
Training, exercises and state-of-the-art tools
The Commission shall offer advanced training modules on foodborne crisis preparedness, foodborne outbreak investigation and other incident management within the framework of the Commission's ‘Better Training for Safer Food (BTSF)’ programme ( 9 ) encouraging a ‘One Health’ approach.
The Commission shall regularly organise simulation exercises of food and feed related incidents with Member States, including their communication aspects and focussing on preparedness and management of incidents. Relevant Union agencies shall participate and the Commission shall join similar exercises organised by the agencies within their competence. The occurrence of a major real incident may replace such simulation exercise. After each exercise, the Commission will present specific conclusions at the following meeting of crisis coordinators referred to in Article 5
The Commission shall provide a follow-up of proper preparedness in Member States through the maintenance and auditing of national food and feed contingency plans.
The Commission shall promote the use of state-of-the-art tools at the Union level, such as tracing tools, molecular typing analyses (including Whole Genome Sequencing) and the sharing of such results in the EFSA-ECDC database on molecular typing of pathogenic agents detected in humans, animals, food, feed and food/feed environment.
Continuous collection, monitoring and analysis of information
The Commission shall continuously collect, monitor and analyse information on direct and indirect cross border threats from the sources listed in Annex II.
Source: EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the EU), © European Union, reuse permitted under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
