FOOD SAFELY DILEMMA FOR MEPs

BY Michael Mann

MFPS will face a major dilemma later this month when Consumer Affairs Commissioner Emma Bonino asks them to approve funding for up to 166 new staff in her reinforced consumer health directorate-general.

Budget Commissioner Erkki Liikanen is due to present proposed revisions to the 1997 budget to his colleagues on 29 April, alongside Bonino's blueprint for changes in the workings of the EU,s scientific committees.

But the move, which forms part of the European Commission's response to the findings of the temporary inquiry committee into BSE, looks likely to clash with last year's undertaking by MEPs that no funding would be made available to pay for new personnel - except to recruit officials from new member states following enlargement. An official on the Parliament's budgets committee acknowledged that the apparent contradiction between the drive for financial austerity and parliamentary calls for better health controls "obviously presents a problem". He said that much would depend on how the Commission packaged its request for extra resources.

Bonino is working on the assumption that 96 people will be moved into the Directorate-General for consumer policy (DGXXIV) from DGVI (agriculture) and DGIII (industry). But first estimates suggest a further 166 new posts will have to be created to allow DGXXIV to operate effectively.

Bonino's advisers are aware they will not get everything they are asking for and have already begun negotiations with their budgetary colleagues over how many of the 166 posts should be completely new and how many could be filled by existing staff from within the institution.

Bonino acknowledges that most of the purely administrative staff could be reallocated from other departments, but she believes that 127 specialist veterinarians for the inspection office in Ireland will have to be recruited from outside.

"We are not convinced we will get all we want, but there are indications that MEPs realise the office needs to be reinforced," said one official.

But Pauline Green, leader of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, warned: "We support the need for proper measures, but Mrs Bonino will have to make her case and we will want to see the justification for increases in staff."

This was echoed by officials on the Parliament's budgets committee, who stressed Bonino would have to look as much as possible at redeployments. "To avoid problems with our earlier resolution, all other means will have to be used before new staff are taken on," said one.

Bonino will also be anxious to ensure that any decisions are taken rapidly. If the Council of Ministers and Parliament agree, the amended budget could be adopted before the summer break.