• Calls for a return “as soon as possible” to the original ministerial structure
The Popular Parliamentary Group has urged the Government, through a Proposal not of Law in Congress, to correct its decision to incorporate the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition in the Ministry of Consumption, and to reintegrate it in the Ministry of Health.
Specifically, the GPP calls on the Executive to apply "the appropriate measures for the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition, bearing in mind the relevance of its functions related to planning, coordination and the development of strategies and actions that promote information , education and health promotion in the field of nutrition, and in particular in the prevention of obesity, be reincorporated as soon as possible into the organic structure of the Ministry of Health ”.
In the explanatory memorandum of this initiative, the GPP remembers from the creation of said body -through a Bill that began its parliamentary debate in December 2000 and that saw its culmination in the following July-, the agency was attached to the Ministry of Health with the aim of "promoting food safety as a fundamental aspect of public health", and "offering guarantees and objective information to consumers and economic agents in the Spanish agri-food sector, from the scope of action of the competences of the General State Administration and with the cooperation of the other Public Administrations and interested sectors ”.
Over the course of these years, the agency has carried out its work daily at its headquarters in Madrid and in its two laboratories -the National Food Center, based in Majadahonda (Madrid), and the Laboratory of Marine Biotoxins, located in Vigo- , and has seen both nutrition and consumption incorporated into its name and functions.
However, underlines the GPP, “this situation changed with the entry into force of Royal Decree 495/2020, of April 28, by which the basic organic structure of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs is developed and Royal Decree 139/2020 is amended. , of January 28, which establishes the basic organic structure of the ministerial departments ”.
The initiative is signed by the GPP spokesperson, Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, the PP's deputy secretary, Cuca Gamarra, the deputy spokesperson for the Popular Group José Ignacio Echániz and the GPP's health spokesperson, Elvira Velasco.
