Finland proposes Helsinki as location of the European Food Authority
The ministerial committee for EU affairs decided on February 25th to propose Helsinki as the site of the planned European Food Authority. Other interested candidate towns in Finland were Kuopio and Turku.
The benefits of Helsinki were deemed to be its central location, from the European perspective, its excellent transport connections and its extensive and advanced scientific community situated in and near the city.
Helsinki is also seen as offering the most international and most multicultural working, educational and residential environment, bearing in mind the needs of agency staff and their families.
By offering Finland´s best known city, the country´s capital, as the agency´s location, Finland wishes to place itself in the best possible position in the probable competition with other candidate countries and cities.
Decisions on any further action on this matter may be taken later.
The plan to establish a European Food Authority is contained in the Commission´s White Paper on Food Safety, dated January 12th, 2000. The responsibilities of the Authority would be to assess and provide information on risks pertaining to food safety issues.