The European residue control system - contributions of the Community Reference Laboratory Berlin

The European Commission is committed to protecting consumers from intolerable health hazards, which may be associated with residues of veterinary drugs or even of non-licensed or forbidden substances in animal products intended for human consumption. For this purpose legislation on veterinary drug residue control has been established as the indispensable basis of the consumer protection within the EU. The European residue legislation commits the Member States to establish a national residue control plan and provides for the establishment of a hierarchically structured system of Community reference laboratories (CRLs), national reference laboratories (NRLs) and routine field laboratories (RFLs). Moreover, the European residue legislation also intends to provide appropriate measures to prevent market distortions caused by differences in the efficiency of residue controls in the Member States. The duties of the CRLs and NRLs are laid down in Council Directive 96/23/EC of 29 April 1996. All activities of these laboratories must be in line with the provisions of this comprehensive legal act and therefore comprise not only the development of appropriate state-of-the-art residue control methods, but also a number of other duties of vital importance, such as the establishment of a uniform quality management system and above all a generally harmonised approach to residue control in all Member States. All these efforts will contribute to maintain public and urban health as well and they will remain without any doubt an exciting challenge for the third millennium. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.