An event was jointly organized 19 February by the Food and Veterinary Agency of North Macedonia and FAO to promote and highlight the key role of Codex standards in protecting consumer health and facilitating fair practices in the food trade. The meeting, which was attended by 40 representatives from key institutions from across North Macedonia, aimed to help the country’s National Codex Committee raise awareness about Codex among key stakeholders, as part of a Codex Trust Fund (CTF) project.

In a pre-recorded message, the Codex Vice-Chairperson, Betul Vezgeçer, underlined the importance of Codex standards: “Food shall only be placed on the market if it is safe, and since food safety is the primary responsibility of food business operators, they should be considered as the backbone of the National Codex Committee,” she said. She also focused on the importance of knowledge exchange, communication, and data sharing between the public authorities and the food businesses for effective development of Codex standards.

Guest presenter, Dirk Lange, former Codex delegate for the European Union, and expert in trade, led discussions on some of the scope and issues covered by Codex work, the importance of Codex standards in the harmonized trade in food, and their role as benchmark standards for the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. The meeting also heard from Frans Verstraete, from the European Commission, who gave an in-depth review of Codex work on contaminants in food.

The CTF project provides crucial support to strengthen North Macedonia’s Codex structure and procedures and increase knowledge of Codex standards in the country. North Macedonia has also contributed to, and benefited from, increased regional cooperation and knowledge exchange with other food safety regulators through increased engagement in the work of Codex Alimentarius.

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Codex Trust Fund
FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia story: FAO and the Food and Veterinary Agency of North Macedonia promote Codex standards

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