Good morning and welcome to our event on the capacity building on Codex Topics, module two basic Codex texts and we will be discussing some basic issues about foods. We have our first speaker is Giuseppe Di Chiera from the Codex Secretariat and we're very pleased to have you here. Welcome Giuseppe. We know that this is going to be a very full and interesting morning for all of us and we can start after I give some explanations about the event. First of all after your presentation we will have a Q&A session and at that point we can all turn on our cameras and microphones and then you can also send your questions via the chat and we'll pick them all and submit them to you and we remind you also that we have interpretation services and you can choose the language that you would like to follow this meeting on and please before you speak or when you speak please say your name and the country from where you are connecting and I think without further ado thank you very much once again and welcome all and Giuseppe you have the floor. Thank you very much Daniela and thank you very much to the ACT project to Ecuador to the Republic of Korea for organizing these interesting series of webinars. My name is Giuseppe Di Chiera for those of you who don't know me I am a program specialist with the Codex Secretariat. My background is in law and economics with a master's degree in law and development. I'm really happy to see so many familiar faces we does here today so happy to see also people that I am meeting for the first time. I really want this webinar to be a chat I really want this webinar to be something that we can you know share also with our colleagues but I really want to engage with you so in case you have questions doubts please feel free to send us your questions your doubts using the chat take note of your questions and as Daniela was saying just a few minutes ago we will address your questions also at the end of this session. Please mute your mic if you're not speaking that would be would be really fantastic not just for me because my level of attention is really low but also for our interpreters. I'm gonna switch every now and then from English to Spanish for yeah this is information for the interpreters mainly. So what are we gonna talk about today? Well we're gonna talk about the basic codex texts but I you know my background is also about music I'm a musician I play different instruments and although I really love the sound of music I don't like to listen to the sound of my voice for too long so if you don't mind I'd like you to play with me so if you have some if you have your cell phone in in front of you or if you can just go to menti.com and enter the code 3444017 so go to menti.com and enter the code 3444017 or use the QR code that you see here with your cell phone. This is just a way to know each other a bit better to get familiar with the topics that we are gonna discuss today together I see a few hearts already appearing on the screen thank you very much I'm gonna just wait for for a few seconds and in the meantime let me tell you the topics of today's webinar so we're gonna talk about basic codex texts which include of course codex standards the guidelines the codes of practice we're gonna have a look at the standards codes of practice guidelines trying to understand to better understand what they mean how we use them how we develop these standards as well then we're gonna have a look at the at the circular letters and at the invitations for electronic working groups which also are a core part of codex work and finally we will see together what I call the other documents including for example the information documents or the publications that are available on the codex website that are also part of codex work so I see wow quite a lot of people already online so with your permission I'd like to go to the first one so the first slide should my internet help me yes so maybe too much okay here we go so where are you from so my question first question for you is where are you from I would like to know if you're from the codex contact point from the private sector from a national codex committee so I see some people from the national codex committee a private sector are happy to welcome you today really important for us to know that there are also people coming from the private sector NGOs other okay I'm curious to know what other people participating in the meeting so where are wait I see okay my internet is low in refreshing but I see now more people from the national codex committee codex contact point as well so Daniela we have a quite different audience many people from different entities which is really good moving on to the next one how much do you know about codex no experience some experience lots of experience that would be fantastic and I mean I'm really looking forward to seeing anyone that work with codex for over 10 years and maybe in that case I will give the mic directly to that person okay we have one person I guess I know who this person is well probably by reading the the the list of participants I know who these persons are really happy to have you with us today so some of you have some experience with codex others have little to no experience of course I'm happy to see that many people have already quite a lot of experience in codex the final one would be this one this question when I hear the words codex element values I think about so enter your your favorite word the old words even what is the first thing that comes to your mind when we talk about codex I see science food safety food standards discussions debates science again laws safe food okay food codes through harmonization okay I see many words coming in interesting rules as well rules about food good standards okay again harmonization okay quite a lot of results well um this is really really interesting because that is actually sort of defined is defining how people see codex how people imagine what codex actually is and you know thank you very much let me let me stop here we whenever we talk about codex every people every person has a different definition for codex right so what is my definition of codex that is really interesting because my definition for codex was let's say a bit different um as I was mentioning to you my background is in low and economics and you know when I joined codex I didn't really study what codex was or is so uh my boss who I don't know is on if he's online at the moment Tom Island told me well you have to read the procedural manual which is one again of the basic codex text that we will analyze together today but my idea what I got from from Tom what I got from reading the procedural manual is that basically if you eat an apple in Tokyo, Roma, Los Angeles, Ciudad del Mexico it doesn't matter where you eat it you know that this apple won't kill you well unless you are snow white won't kill you because there is a codex standard for that ensuring that this apple doesn't have um too many pesticides or pesticides that will hurt you that this this apple was traded uh following codex standards now this was my definition of codex so it's something that protects you that allows you to eat an apple no matter where you are in the world because as you know as we say if it isn't safe well it isn't food so what is codex uh codex is about protecting health and facilitating trade um codex is a process and a result a process because the codex alimentarius commission organized the process to convene members and observers and develop standards we have more than 180 members currently 189 members 188 countries plus the european union and although codex is a member driven organization it is really important for us to have also more than 240 observers from NGOs from IGOs from other UN organizations as well because codex would have little if no authority I would say in the field of international food standards if it was not for the contribution also of the private sector of NGOs IGOs just think for example about uh listening to the voice of consumer we have several consumers organization now attending and actively participating in codex and we're gonna see also the differences between what an observer can do and what a member can do because again let me stress it one more time the codex alimentarius commission is a member driven organization which means that for example members decide on the agenda of the codex alimentarius commission but as many of you were saying in the initial world cloud um codex is also a result when we think about codex we think about a full code we think about a collection of standards guidelines uh codes of practice as well that sort of regulate the food that we can eat every day so I will start exactly from here um we talk about codex text and when we talk about codex text the first text that we think of are standards guidelines and codex practice what people tend to forget although when we talk about codex text is that codex text uh including standards guidelines and code of practice are recommendations meaning that their application is voluntary what does it mean it means that um member countries need to take legal steps at national level to incorporate codex guidance into their legislation or regulation for it to be let me say enforceable um so this is really important also at WTO level um I'm gonna talk I'm gonna use the codex language quite frequently um in during this webinar and I see that my boss tom is already with us and he was the one teaching me the language of of codex when I first joined uh codex because in codex we don't really use uh we don't really say word trade organization we say WTO we don't really say the codex committee on food hygiene we say ccfh so um WTO so I'm gonna uh use these acronyms so um codex uh standards became particularly relevant um also due to the creation of the WTO and the relevant agreement uh what does it mean it means for example that the SPS agreement uh identifies the standards of the codex alimentaries commission for for example for food additives veterinary drugs pesticide residues contaminants we're gonna have a look at all these different sections during the um the webinar as the uh benchmark um which means that for example WTO members wishing to set stricter food safety standards than codex standards may be required to provide evidence as to the let me say scientific nature of their of their measures in case of a trade dispute for example and currently codex standards prevent and assist in the resolution of trade disputes before WTO in both the SPS and TBT agreement but I see that my boss tom island is online and I know he can unfortunately stay with us for five minutes only um so I take the opportunity of having uh tom with us and tom if you can turn on your camera so that I can be sure that you are here with me even now um I have one one question for you and once again tom thank you very much for for taking the time for being with us tom island is the secretary of the codex elementaries commission um tom my question for you would be as this webinar is about codex text codex standards and so on why should people be interested in codex standards and why are they so important today tom if you don't mind you you have the floor thank you very much thanks very much and my camera I think is on right yes at least I can see myself I hope you can all see myself as well so and it's good to see some of you uh on the screen I see most of the screen is the is the presentation a great presentation by the way it was nice to see that somebody's listening to me uh when I talk and when I teach them the language so great great job so far and um I like particularly the to display codex always as a process and a result um and I always think that we learn as much in the process of building a codex standard um as we then learn from the standard and it's it's it's different people also who learn different things in different um in the different times that we work on codex for example if we get together in the technical committee in the working groups in the commission we form networks between countries um people who would otherwise not meet if they would not never work together on a codex standard and they meet and they later they tell me I mean oh yeah when I have a problem in whatever in this country I know who to call I know that I can contact somebody and this is really great so codex is we say the codex family right but it's really a big network and um then of course we have the codex standards now why should you know about codex uh disaper um before you joined codex did had you ever heard the word codex no probably not no no I um I myself I heard it a little bit earlier than joining codex I heard it when I had my previous job and the colleague of mine said Tom you're applying for this job in food and you don't know what the codex alimentaries is this is the codex alimentarios and he showed me like a whole shell of books uh which was the um the physical version of the codex alimentarios that we had at the time and you should know about it and obviously yes I needed to know about it because I was applying for a job in food standards um now does the consumer need to know about us well the consumer can live without knowing about us but I always think if you want to be an informed consumer it's better um that you know what's happening it's better that you know what your government is doing um what is your government doing for my food safety for my food quality for food trade for that I have enough food that I have good food available um so it's important um because the codex standards form the basis they don't do everything but it is a good international basis for providing for being able to provide safe and good quality food to everyone so I think yes it's useful to know about it uh regardless in a way where you work because we all have to eat um and and obviously if you're working in a ministry if you're working in the private sector um even more if you're working in the food industry if you're working in um in the agriculture ministry the the health ministry the trade ministry yes you should know about codex was that enough just that I was more than enough okay thank you very much uh Tom thank you very much Tom Island codex secretary and thank you for taking some time and uh for being here with us thank you very much and have a good evening thanks a lot and take care good luck with the seminar thank you um so where were we uh we were talking about the codex standards guidelines and code of practices codes of practice which are the basically the most famous products of the codex alimentaries commission after that the first distinction that actually my boss told me a long time ago more than wow let's say almost eight years ago uh was that we have two standards basically we can have codex standards that are general or codex standards that are specific um we have for example when we talk about codex standards guidelines and code of practice that are general we mean that this um basically these are the core codex text these apply to all products and product categories these texts basically typically deal with for example hygiene practice uh with uh hygienic practice with labeling with additives with inspection and certification think about for example nutrition as well think about residues of veterinary drugs and pesticides in food as well so these are uh the some codex standards let me give you an example for example food additives are few fully regulated in the uh codex general standard for food additives i hope i pronounced the acronym correct because once again we here we usually say see a gsfa the codex general standard for food additives um this standard is one of the most important standard that we have online one of the most downloaded standard and it clearly lays out the principle the principles for using additives and the fines also the the maximum use levels and it is so important that this standard is also available as a database on the codex website not gonna spend so much time on how to find codex standards where to find them how to open them how to read them because we're gonna have a look at that exactly at the end of this session other codex general standards for example uh another one is the codex general standard for contaminants in food and feed which define again principles etc sets limits for a number of uh contaminants and is also uh this this standard is also available on the codex website again think about uh the codex general standard for labeling of pre-packaged food i mean we can go on for for quite a lot because these standards actually are really important for for uh for codex because uh they basically um become also the reference for other standards and we're gonna see an example uh in a in a few seconds um then we have what we call the specific standards or also the commodity standards which refer for example to specific uh commodities let me also give you um a bit of background because uh in the 60s when codex 60s when codex was founded actually in 1963 uh next year codex will actually turn 60 um codex let's say in those years took the approach of setting standards applicable to individual foods now with time this turned out to be uh let me say impractical both for keeping standards up to date and for the implementation as well and after that we gave way to the practice of creating uh group standards which means for example uh we now have a general standard for fruit juices and nectars which replace the previous standards plural for individual fruit juices so again codex standards we start with standards guidelines code of practice and now we know that we have codex standards that can be general or specific let me give you a an example of a a codex text this is a codex commodity standard this is the standard for kribi fruit uh recently adopted by uh the commission developed by cc ffv the codex committee on fresh fruits and vegetables you see why we use acronym because in codex we are lazy and we want to save time so cc f f v um usually commodity standards include the name uh of the product include for example the scope of a product uh which includes of course uh the name of the food to which the standard applies and in most cases the purpose for which the commodity will be used you will also find in the standards weights and measures which contains provisions such as fill of the container and the great weight of the commodity well the description that as the name would suggest includes a definition of of the product or products covered with for example an indication where appropriate of the raw material from which they are derived the essential composition and if you look at the right column you will see the reference to the relevant general standards in this case for example you can see that there is a clear reference uh to the uh maximum levels of the established in the general standard for contaminants and toxins in food and feed and these uh references references are available in almost all uh codex standards and when a standard is sort of updated uh such updates should be reflected also in all uh codex standards and i see many of you attended the recent uh session of the codex committee for the uh luck region and as you recall we uh discussed together um the how to implement how to update the regional standard um following the new provisions included in the labeling standards now this is more or less what a commodity standard look like but we talked about codex standards guidelines and codex practice guidelines and codex of practice fall into two major categories when we talk about guidelines um we have we have principles that set out policy in certain key areas i think about again food additives contaminants food hygiene these are basically the main areas but we also have guidelines for the interpretation of principle or for the interpretation and extensions of provision of codex general standards um just to give you an example we have a guideline on nutrition labeling which is if i call correctly if i study correctly as called say xg to 1985 again say xg is another acronym which means codex cx codex and the g is for guidelines um this labeling uh this guideline on nutrition labeling for example um ensure that nutrition labeling in is effective for example in providing the consumer in providing the consumer sorry with uh with information about food so that can make a wise choice of food when they actually buy the food um or for example in providing a means for convening information of the nutrient content of a food on the label and then we have of course the cause of practice they also fall into two major categories the first one cause of a hygienic practice for individual foods or uh group of foods the first thing that i can the first one that i can think of for example think about the general principle of food hygiene which also if you ever i imagine that you did enter a a restaurant or a bar you will sometimes see a sort of a a card saying ha ccp the hazard analysis and critical control point asap which is a core part of the general principle of food hygiene codex developed the asap and the other one the other codes aimed at the prevention or reduction of chemical mineral contaminants such as micro toxin acrylamide heavy metals and you again we will have a look and now to find them out to read them at the end of the session but they are again they are all available for free on the codex website um moving on to the next one oof this is a quite tough one uh a quite um fool i would say slide uh because we have more than 20 uh active codex committees at the moment which develop standards we have seen uh that uh standards can be about different topics and the same goes for uh codex committees we have for example codex committees on food labeling we have codex committees on the codex committee on pesticides residues food hygiene food hygiene just basically concluded its work although they still have to adopt the the final report this week but they just concluded the the work uh last week in san diego and i see some of you that were also attending the ccfh session um then we have and these committees are the first ones like uh food labeling food hygiene are called the the general committees or sometimes the horizontal committees because they develop let me say uh probably in english the right word would be cross cutting concepts and principles applying that that apply to food to food in general uh but also to specific foods or to group of foods um on the second column then you will see the vertical or also called the commodity committees like uh uh cc ffv the fresh the the codex committee on fresh fruits and vegetables these uh committees basically develop standards for for specific foods or for classes of foods um on the third column you can see what we call the task forces which are uh ad hoc committees established for specific reasons for example the the latest one was the one on antimicrobial resistance uh chaired by the republic of korea and finally of course we have the fo w two regional coordinated committees i'm happy to have uh daniella beavero as one of the moderators of the session she is also part of the cc lak secretariat also regional coordinating committees develop can develop standards regional standards in particular if there is a need for for a member to or for more than one member actually to develop a standard for a specific for example commodity important for the region i'm about to pause because as i told you i don't really like to listen to the sound of my voice for way too long but before that another important part that i really wanted to stress before we move forward is that codex is based on science the foundation of codex is uh and the codex standards is sound scientific evidence now we have uh four expert bodies they regularly provide science scientific advice to codex i say regularly because for example we also receive um the contribution and the scientific advice of the i a e a the international agency for the atomic energy which for example provides scientific advice on uh radio contamination in foods uh but we have four main let's say expert bodies that provide scientific advice to codex which are jack fa jampion jamera and jam no too many acronyms i know difficult uh to learn in in a second but let me go through each of them so jack fa is the joint feo w two expert committee on food additives the second one jmpr is the again the feo w two meeting on pesticide residue third one is the feo w two expert meeting on microbiological risk assessment and finally the feo w two expert meetings on nutrition now i'm not gonna talk about the role of science here because i know that one of the webinars that have been scheduled for the next year will talk specifically on the role of science in codex so i guess my colleagues will be talking more about this part again i just want you to know that codex standards are based on sound scientific evidence and this is really really important for you to note but um as we were mentioning uh a few minutes ago uh codex standards are voluntary in nature so it means that they need to be translated into the national registration into the national law if you prefer uh this is not really up to the codex secretariat to say how to implement them uh and we cannot really say that actually and not even for the codex and inventory commission but it is it is really up to you to the to the countries to um to do that i'm gonna switch to spanish ii podemos contar hoy con la participación de la licenciada tania fosado que también es el punto de contacto de de codex de méxico que no va nos vas a hablar justamente de cómo méxico está implementando las normas del codex en el sistema nacional y se encontraron problemas cuál es cuál es la ruta que que siguen entonces tania muchas gracias por estar aquí con nosotros te doy la palabra gracias tania y adelante muchas gracias ucp que me escuchan si hay muchas felicidades por el webinar eh consideramos muy importante este tipo de eventos para familiarizarnos de cómo se armoniza con respecto a las diferentes regulaciones en los diferentes países de la región y sobre todo pues apoyarnos en los diferentes procesos y somos más de 200 conectados así que pues muchas felicidades por por la promoción de este webinar eh voy a voy a hablar del caso de méxico eh méxico es miembro de la o mc desde 1995 como como ya este hablamos de este de esta organización muy importante pues méxico es parte del acuerdo de obstáculos técnicos al comercio de la o mc y tenemos la obligación de tomar las normas internacionales como base en la elaboración de nuestros reglamentos técnicos la figura de los reglamentos técnicos en méxico eh se llama normo oficial mexicana eh es muy importante notar que las normas internacionales son la base es decir el piso y no necesariamente el techo de la regulación mexicana ya que si hubiera un objetivo legítimo de interés público a atender que no se ve en la norma internacional las autoridades eh mexicanas que emiten la regulación pudiendo ser eh secretaria de agricultura o la secretaria de salud pudieran atender eh estas necesidades eh con la norma y la regulación técnica de manera adicional a los parámetros que ya se encuentran eh en los estándares internacionales en el caso de méxico eh si nosotros tenemos una regulación técnica más restrictiva que lo que esto establece la norma internacional de debemos tener una justificación legítima para los miembros de la o mc eh esto en realidad se da para casos excepcionales eh ya que en general nosotros armonizamos con las normas internacionales para no crear eh obstáculos o barreras y necesarias al comercio eh para considerar todo esto eh nosotros tenemos una ley nacional que se llama ley de la infraestructura de la calidad que rige la elaboración de las normas oficiales mexicanas esta ley eh en su artículo 34 establece que se deben de utilizar como base estas normas internacionales eh y bueno de acuerdo a la materia deben de ser aplicables y establecer el el grado de concordancia con estas normas es señalas y es idéntica si es modificada o si es no equivalente según sea el caso eh también la ley eh preve la participación de méxico en los trabajos de los comités internacionales y bueno eh llevar todo esto a los parades internacionales para eh elaborar normas internacionales y esto se hace a través de comités mexicanos para presidir eh coordinar y representar al país en todos los eventos relacionados eh con normas internacionales bailando que sean representativas para nuestro nuestra situación y nuestro comercio nacional ya que nosotros por ley estamos obligados a observarlos eh en estos comités mexicanos participan los diferentes sectores eh interesados ya que se busca eh elaborar esta postura que contemplen eh la visión del consumidor del productor del agricultor del comercializador etc. y bueno en la actualidad en méxico existe un comité mexicano de atención al codex que revisa todos los trabajos eh según el comité y este comité eh es coordinado por la autoridad responsable y la experta en el tema por ejemplo para el caso del comité de hien es la secretaria de salud para el caso del comité de frutas yortalizas frescas es la secretaria de agricultura y bueno se coordina para elaborar y establecer eh grupos de trabajo eh nacionales también que revisa cada documento del codex eh por todo esto para méxico la labor del codex se vuelve crucial para sentar las bases técnicas para el desarrollo de nuestras regulaciones nacionales para proteger nuestros objetivos legítimos a nuestros consumidores y facilitarnos el comercio y la organización eh a nivel eh internacional y bueno o sea nosotros estamos en el entendido de que de que todo este comercio de alimentos crece muy rápido que las labores del codex son cada vez eh pues más este especializadas eh para el caso de méxico por ejemplo existe la norma doscientos veintitrés es la norma oficial mexicana de queso y toma como base la norma general del codex para queso para disposiciones generales y establece que las especificaciones para cada variedad de queso deben tomar como referencia las normas internacionales de codex y para cada estilo de queso eh como ya bien saben hay una norma del codex para mosarela para cheddar estas normas están referenciadas en nuestra norma de queso y bueno ya que son productos de consumo nacional y y bueno hay un comercio significativo para estos productos eh méxico tiene aproximadamente ciento siete normas oficiales mexicanas de armo armonizadas con el codex alimentaris eh pues por todo esto eh y esta armonización que aparte regula nuestra ley estarán estarán viendo la participación activa de méxico en los diferentes e importantes poros eh del codex y pues y pues la orden muchas gracias thank you thank you very much uh uh taña fosado uh codex contact point for uh Mexico thank you very much so this would conclude uh the first part of our webinar so in the first part we have seen uh codex standards we know now that we have at least three different types of codex standards we have the standards the codes of practice the the guidelines codex also as we mentioned during the presentation sets maximum residue limits and maximum levels for for example for veterinary drugs for pesticide residues in food um and again as mentioned before we're gonna have a look and how to find them where to find them how to download them how to read them also at the end of the session now moving on to the second part the second part would be and I still hope that you can see my screen uh would be about circular letters and electronic working groups which also form part of what we call the basic codex tags and actually these are really important for you if you want to engage with codex as Tom was saying it is really important for you to participate actively in codex and reading the circular letters participating in electronic working groups is essentially if you want to contribute to the work of codex now the circular letters so circular letters are used to implement the recommendation of codex committees um they are used to request comments on drug standards for example uh if you if you participated in one of the codex committees you will always find a document compiling all the comments are coming from members and observers again let me stress this one more time and observers on a codex standard guideline or code of practice uh we're going to have a look and example uh right after the slide but we also used circular letters for example to collect comments on other topics but let's say the main purpose of circular letters is to really request comments on draft standards we now use software and online software that is called the codex online commenting system the OCS again another new acronym for you to learn today don't worry i'm going to share my presentation with all of you so i don't have to take notes at the moment these online commenting system is a tool by which the codex contact point enter comments uh and send comments um on different draft standards and then we have the electronic working groups the invitation letters uh which are used to invite members and observers to participate in an electronic working group especially the kickoff messages invite members and observers to register and to join the electronic working group they provide details on the work of the electronic working group they provide also the deadline for registration and then also a link to actually join the discussion online which we hold on the codex forum now this is what a circular letter looks like um for example this is a circular letter requesting comments at step eight on the draft regional standard for dried meat now i know that many of you participated in the first module of this series of webinars so i'm not gonna spend much time on the step procedure but i also know that there are people that know almost nothing about codex or that are joining us for the first time so let me recap the codex step procedure in a few words uh we have eight steps in the codex step procedure so it takes eight steps for a standard to be adopted let's say we start from what i call inappropriately step zero where we have the idea of developing a standard the need uh for having a specific standard think about having a standard for for a for a specific commodity for example my uh i come from from sardinia which is a lovely island here in in italy and we have there a pair a different pair which is different taste flavor and shape to any other pair that you can find uh around the world let's say that italy wants to develop a standard for that then here is where step zero occurs when we think about uh developing a standard when we collect the the basic information the data the data that we need that we need the importance also of at trade level of having a standard for for the let me call it the sardinian pair um then we move to step one two three four and five where basically there we collect for example step three uh initial comments from the members and the observers to see the status of the of the draft standard if there is a for example a part or more than one part that need to be updated and further developed and if members agree then the standard is then sent to step five where basically is what we say is ready for adoption at step five which means that the commission will give us sort of a first adoption to the text which will then go through another circle or cycle of comments uh until step eight so when then the standard is sort of uh going for final adoption to the codex alimentaries commission again i'm taking some things for granted as this is the second module of the webinar and but again i'm gonna share with you some useful information about the eight step procedure at the end of the webinar and also the recordings of the first webinar are available online and my colleagues from FAO have kindly already shared the links into the chat again just to simply record that uh codex texts are developed by the codex alimentaries subsidiary bodies ccfh the codex committee on food hygiene for example and then sent for adoption to uh the codex alimentaries commission in this case going back to the circular letters what we see here is this is that this circular letter is requesting comments at step eight on the drafts regional standard for dried meat and if you want to comment on such standard for example you have to carefully read the request for comments well first of all the deadline so you need to provide deadline the the comments by the deadline in this case the fourth of november but you really have to read and this is something that i really stress with uh my colleagues with the with my friends also from from the members please read carefully the request for comments section because here we ask you not really not the codex secretary but the the the codex community the codex family as tom was saying is requesting you specific comments in this case as the standard is going for comments at step eight comments and it's always like that should address whether the text is ready for adoption or not and if not we invite members and observers to provide the rational and proposals to facilitate adoption we don't want to reopen the technical discussion at the commission level we think not we the the the codex members think that the discussion the technical discussion has been completed and therefore the standard is ready for adoption sent to the commission and there um the the text gets adopted so this is a circular letter an example of a circular letter another example of the text that we use in codex is the invitation letters to electronic working groups uh for example this is the invitation letter for a the management of unsupported compounds without public health concerns scheduled for periodic review by jmpr wow quite a long name um chaired by in this case uh Chile and i see some colleagues from Chile online thank you very much for joining us today uh again description of work that you will find all the useful information uh regarding the work that the electronic working group will carry out who the chairs are who the co-chairs are the working languages in this case English and Spanish the timetable for work and in the second part that i didn't include right now you will find all the useful links to register to the electronic working group how to join the electronic working group uh forum and so on once again i've been talking for quite a lot already and um i'm really happy uh to see and to have uh with us uh the codex contact point of uh gayana um let me see if miss scott is with us i can i can see her um thank you very much and miss scott for for taking some time for being us uh for being with us today and apologies for the problem with the presentation um we see um i have a question for you um miss scott basically i'd like to know if you can tell us more about um how gayana shares circular letters and relevant codex documents at national level and the other question that i have is um i'd like to know why if so for gayana is so important to participate in codex work uh miss scott thank you you have the floor over to you good morning everyone and thank you for the floor so my name is matris scott and i am the ccp from gayana so in gayana all of the circular letters and the documents that are received they're received by myself the codex contact point and that is via our codex email so as the documents received from the secretary they're first circulated to our national codex committee and that would be along with the deadline that's given for the submission of those documents so the relevant documents they would be downloaded whether from the website or sometimes they're under online commenting system and they would be sent to the technical persons in the national codex committee that would have been assigned to that subcommittee so for instance whether it's for the codex committee on food additives for food hygiene etc so also at times you may find that you might need some other necessary documents relating to that particular circular letter maybe there's some background information some links so we would download all of that regular relevant documents and they would be sent to the relevant technical persons so they would review those documents and a time frame is usually given and that would be prior to the deadline of the document and that's given for them to submit any comments so when any comments are received they are usually then circulated back to our national codex committee as a whole for their approval endorsement before we usually submit anything on the online commenting system in terms of the importance of our participation for our codex work Indiana participation in codex it allows our country to really keep updated on any information and any ongoing discussions as it relates to food safety to food standards and it would assist us in developing our national association on food safety so through our participation in codex work we can ensure that the standards being developed they don't negatively impact our country we will have access to sound scientific evidence as it relates to food safety because indeed standards are important and they play a very significant role in the trade for us thank you thank you very much miss scott thank you for joining us and thank you for the detailed explanation um i see there is a question if you don't mind Daniela since we are on on this point um there is a question coming from louis and louis santa maria on how uh how do ewg's work uh again um my colleagues will uh further talk about the section in future in future webinars but let me spend a couple of minutes on that if you don't mind um okay let me see that uh let me say that uh during the step procedure um sometimes a codex committee uh decides to establish an electronic working group to address a specific point to address uh a question for example it could be to uh develop a standard to start the let's say the the first um draft of a standard to work together with the experts to collect data to collect information and again electronic working groups are established by a codex committee now can the codex alimentaries commission establish an electronic working group the answer is yes uh can any subsidiary body of the uh uh codex alimentaries commission establish a working group again the answer is yes so now imagine the eight step process as a sort of a um linear let me say row three from point a to point b uh going through step one two three five until eight sometimes it may be the case that a committee sees that a standard is not really ready for adoption so what the committee does is sending back a draft to the electronic working group uh to a previous step for example to step two so that the expert can address the issues for example this happened uh uh maybe in 2019 if i recall correctly yes i see that uh the ccp of messigo is still with us so she can correct me if i'm wrong uh with the proposal for a draft standard for dates which was sent back to the electronic working group because it neither it needed further consideration um there were a few paragraphs that needed to be further discussed that the solution couldn't be found uh during the the committee so it was sent back to the electronic working group to uh address uh the depending issue so luce i hope this answers your question but again my colleagues will talk in further details about electronic working groups in future sessions of these series of webinars we almost at the end of my presentation i've been talking for more than one hour already um final part of my presentation and let me please tell me if you can see my presentation correctly now in in full view i hope so thank you very much um so the final part is about the information documents now what are information documents sometimes we forget about information documents but they are also part of codex basic text um these information documents are developed by codex committees by the codex subsidiary bodies uh due to what we call actually the occasion need is not a rule they don't really develop information documents every time uh but they based on on occasion needs they do develop information documents which actually have to be developed and agreed upon by a codex committee um have to contain useful information again this is really important have to this information is to be uh useful for members observers but also for national governments and again they are not considered um let's say appropriate by by a committee to be adopted as a codex standard nor to be included in the procedural manual just to give you a few examples we have the guidance for risk management options in light of different risk assessment of assessment outcomes or um let me say about let me talk about one that is not included here but is the uh information document on how the codex committee on food hygiene considers new work or now it establishes new work we're almost there but I still want to talk about an important part of codex basic text which are the codex reports if you know nothing about codex if you just join codex if you want to know more about codex if you want to know again going back to the question of loose why we have an electronic working group why we are issuing a circular letters a circular letter why we are developing a specific standard here is where you will find this information codex reports now uh codex reports include reports from of course the codex elementaries commission the final report of the codex elementaries commission cac 45 will be made available by the end of the year we're gonna adopt the final report next week um then we have of course reports from ccfh from the subsidiary bodies of course ccgp the codex committee on general principles ccpr the codex committee on pesticide residues I'm really sorry for the interpreters I know quite a lot of new acronyms for you as well and all reports are uploaded on the codex website they are all available on the codex website and we're gonna have a look at them together but what I want you to know in the meantime is that if you're new to codex if you know nothing about codex if you are the juice app at the joint codex almost eight years ago probably this is where you would like to start from open a codex report and go to the summary and status of work there you will find everything that happened in a specific codex committee you will find the main summary of the decision of the commission of the committee of a commissioner again um and there you will find the actions so for example if you look at the right column I know that it's a bit small for you to read it entirely but you will see that there were texts that were sort of sent for adoption at step eight five eight by the committee which means that the committee considered those standards ready for adoption by the codex elementaries commission and by reading the columns by reading for example text topic draft standard for dried meat step step eight and for example the paragraph paragraph 40 if you go through the report go to paragraph 40 you will find all the necessary information regarding the adoption of that dried uh of the draft standard for dried meat so I talked about the actions required by the commission the members the step finally actions by electronic working group here we say that for example this is a part of the codex committee of spices and herbs uh you will find uh basically the reason why we are having a for example a need for any an electronic working group working on the drafts a draft staff that for card a moment uh there uh why we are establishing a any training working group working on the draft standard for tomatic and so on apparently there is a typo I'll leave it as a as an Easter egg there is a typo in a in a report a funny one if you if you read carefully this report you will find it but uh I'm not gonna mention it right now probably I need to tell my colleagues to fix this this report auto correct sometimes uh really kills us um but in any case also here uh you will get all the information to know why we are establishing an electronic working group why we have such an electronic working group and so on almost done I would say I'm done where can I find codex text well the answer is the codex website so let me go to the to the codex website so that we can really have a quick look at it together and because I still get lost every now and then on the codex website let me see okay here we go okay this is the codex website for me really uh if you're new to codex this is also another good starting point we going back to where we started from codex text right so if you want to read download and find the codex text just look at this bar over here go to codex text of course and click on it immediately you will find all the information that we talked about today not just that but also for example the information regarding the ad state procedure in this lovely infographic you might want to read it because this is really useful especially if you are new to codex to get to know all the important steps and what happened what happened set each step during the development of a standard and if you go to the right column here you will see view the complete list of codex text just click on it and you will be redirected to the complete list of codex text we have more than 370 if I recall correctly 371 yes I am correct good memory 371 codex text on different topics on for example codex standards for for for apple the code of organic practices for different products the guidelines as well sometimes again this is a the classic example that I give if you cannot find what you're looking for you can use this useful google search feature over here on top right of the codex website for example if I type here ASAP I won't be able to find it because there is no a standard called ASAP codex standard for ASAP or so on it is a part of the hygiene text so you just go here and type ASAP and you will be redirected to the page and to the result page and as you can see that would be the first result so you just simply need to click on it and you will find all the information you were looking for so this is for codex standards codex text as I was mentioning before we also have the online database if you go to the same column codex text online database codex online database you will find the three database on pesticide residues in food veterinary drugs residues in food and the general standard for food additives again let me give you a spoiler we are about to finalize the new version of the codex elementarius website which is going to be even more user friendly we'll have new tools that will really facilitate your life and your work we will announce it next year so don't let me give you too many spoilers but just please know that this is going to happen soon going back to the second part of the webinar we talked about the circular letters so going back to the initial bar resources just click on circular letters and you will find all the circular letters that are actually currently out for comments again look at the deadline because this is really important we want to receive your comments within the deadline because then the codex committee not just the codex secretary but the codex committee will have to analyze them sort of in a timely manner to also guarantee that the discussion at committee level will just go fine and as planned and I would say just to facilitate really the discussions there if you want to know what codex is currently working on this is the page for you you need to look at this page you really need to study this page and you probably want to also prod your colleagues in your national codex committee to really keep an eye on this page electronic working groups almost done committees electronic working groups here you will find all the electronic working groups currently open for business let me say with the invitation which is what we just seen together the direct link to the forum now Luz going back to your question another important point for you to know and for for all our colleagues online is that the codex contact point actually authorizes who can participate in a electronic working group this is to ensure a level of transparency security to so that also the chairs of the electronic working groups know that that person that expert has been authorized by the member and this is again another important task of the codex contact point finally another part that for me is really important is the publication section this is an amazing page for me because here you will find basically my tears and stress I work quite a lot on on publications as well and but it is really also important for you to know more about uh codex about publications about the standards look for example uh this is the new look and feel of uh codex standards what codex standards will look like in the future uh with a new design with the digital object identifier that will also monitor downloads and citations of codex text so this is what we are currently developing and the same design will be used for all codex standards if you didn't download it yet if you didn't read it yet please download also our magazine the codex magazine the 2022 magazine which was recently announced at the commission if i scroll down quickly i just want you to focus on two publications two more publications the first one understanding codex if you have no knowledge of little knowledge of codex or if you want to refresh your memory and your knowledge of codex download this publication it includes everything you need to know about codex although the publication has been published in 2018 it is still relevant you will find all the basic information about codex and finally codex and wto trade and full standards if you want to know the the let's say why codex standards as you are used as benchmark what it means for codex standards to be the benchmark used by wto this is the publication that you need to download that you need to study carefully uh i will stop here and i'd like to remind you that we also have a codex twitter account which is quite active and i would like you to if you didn't already to follow our twitter handle which is uh fio wto codex as simple as that which is quite frequently updated and i'm not saying that because i do that but also because i do that so if you haven't followed the codex twitter handle yet please do it now your presentation i'm going to give the floor to marco pino marco you have the floor marco you need to turn on your mic still mic off marco okay well we have to wait for marco to reconnect seems that we've seems like we've lost him we have a question from the chat and i think we have another question here about the documents and you said what you're showing the document on pdf and all that my question is are these available in spanish uh codex uh code of practice uh all the reports all of them are available at least in the in english french and spanish um if you go let me let me quickly show it to you if i can real quick uh this is the codex website of course on top right you can switch to spanish for example if you wish and you will find the same information in spanish let me go to to the for example the codex standards on these right column over here you will find uh all almost every time the six official languages we are working to complete uh the pending uh standards in in chinese russian and arabic to have them available on the website but if you click for example on on the spanish version of a standard you will see that the standard is also available in spanish this one for example is the standard for for mice um yeah so all codex standards are available in in all languages and also the information that i shared with you today are available in uh is available in uh uh spanish as well thank you thank you jucepe i think i see gustavo's hand raised yes jucepe thank you and from bolivia from la pas i am a member of the bolivian codex elementarius and i am interested in knowing a little more about some document that whether it has been already drafted uh what to what extent are these standards codex standards being harmonized in the different latin american countries because in mexico i understand that they have over a hundred harmonized um standards uh codex standards and i'd like to know what is going on in all of the countries of latin america and the caribbean because i want to know the percentage of codex standards uh how how many have been harmonized because that's a very important information for us for those of us who are putting together gathering collecting information for the codex so since jose knows the info jucepe knows all the information about the number of documents available so bolivian codex would be interested in knowing a little bit more about this uh how many codex elementary standards have been harmonized across latin america thank you very much gustavo thank you daniella um this is a really interesting question so um let me take you by the end and let's go back in in time uh in the past we had what we call the adoption procedure where a a member would inform the codex elementarius secretariat about the uh number of uh codex text that they had adopted now um as you know um codex standards are voluntary in nature so with time it was impossible for the codex secretariat but also for the members to inform us about the exact percentage of number of text that had been adopted by a uh by a member state and also because that was not really mandatory so that was probably made on on on a voluntary basis by the state so the information was not precise was not uh up to date as well now uh again it's not really up to the codex secretariat to monitor how many standards have been adopted by a member state nonetheless we have just have just issued a new survey on the use of codex standards on how basically how many standards have been adopted or are being being used by uh codex members not just in the latin american region uh and the caribbean region but uh worldwide so we're gonna share the results i imagine by mid 2023 so we start with to give you a precise number i would like you to wait until uh unfortunately i would like to ask you to wait until uh mid next year thank you thank you josepe i'm not sure if marco is already reconnected to make sure that he can ask his question we can see marco we can see you but we cannot hear you something is wrong going on with his mic i can't hear him we cannot hear him we will try our best there is a question that marco posted on the chat perhaps i should read it maybe his question is this one so marco is mentioning hi josepe i please explain the mandate and the scope of the codex protecting the health and ensuring good practices for for food trade and uh safety of the apple i still have it here still safe uh the mandate of codex is to protect consumer health and to facilitate fair practices in in the food trade um public concerns about food safety issues often place codex at the center of global debates we can talk about food drugs we can talk about pesticides we can talk about food additives these are issues discussed in codex meetings again i guess it's important for for me to stress it one more time that codex standards are based on sound science provided by again independent international risk assessment bodies or a doc consultation organized by um FPO and WTO and codex standards really contribute to ensuring safe good quality food everywhere in the world and they by by ensuring the let's say um good quality safe food they also contribute to facilitating uh fair practices in the in the food trade because if one country knows that that food is safe to consume it will be more inclined either to import or export that food as a consequence uh thank you thank you josepe would you like to take a floor i think you raise your hand yes daniella good morning everyone you know that in Haiti we also use the codex norms standards and we have a committee that works on the adoption of these standards which mostly come in pd on pdf formats and the committee sometimes is asking for a word version to be able to facilitate the adaptations the editing uh efforts that we are making and so we need to if we need to enter some changes to the document we need uh that uh facilitation okay and maybe it could be possible to have the updating mechanisms to provide word files to be able to facilitate life for the committee members who need to edit or bring annotations or or suggestions to the table i'm really happy to see daniella if i may i'm gonna take this one i'm really happy to see uh our colleague from my it i was really happy to uh meet him at the last session of cc lack although only uh virtually and i really hope that we will be able to add french as a new language for cc lack in the future to facilitate also the participation of it in the work of codex although my french is terrible because i'm italian and i have a terrible accent in french um so yes uh to to answer your question if you have a specific need uh if you need to have a word document of a specific codex standard or codex text you are um invited to send me an email or to send an email to codex at fio.org and we will be more than happy to support you and support it thank you thank you jusip i have two questions that are on the chat first one is what relationship is there between the omc and the codex elementaries do they have common objectives in terms of harmonizing no standards to increase or to invite more uh world trade of foods okay okay let me start with this one um how many hours do we have uh okay no i guess i guess we only have a few minutes um okay thank you for for you for your question this is a tough one uh because it would require actually some time for me to be precise yes uh when it's up to harmonization when it's up to facilitate trade worldwide yes codex standards and and trade and wto i would say go end in end because they really work together to facilitate a trade at worldwide level um as i was mentioning during my presentation codex standards became the benchmark for for the wto um which means that um for example uh the wto in case of a dispute recognizes codex standard as a benchmark for solving such a dispute but again having harmonized standards having um a some sort of a common field on which we can uh trade really facilitate the the international trade and yes we work for example the codex secretariat works quite frequently with the tbt and sps secretariat to also address uh any issues that may arise um it is really about uh harmonizing international uh food safety laws in this case uh but again i don't want to enter now into this discussion because um giving you uh these details in five minutes won't be probably correct and this is a topic that i know will be covered by another webinar and probably my colleagues or probably myself as well i don't know um we will talk about these for more than one hour definitely so i in the meantime i will stop here but again um i invite you in the meantime to download the publication called trade and standards which is available on the codex website which includes all the um um necessary information related to codex and wto over thank you Giuseppe and the last question that we have here could you uh elaborate on whether or not more works of the codex have been are being carried out right now i'm not sure i read this properly maybe uh the person asking the question would like to ask it because i kind of understand that whether or not there have been any works done on the on the foods well yes the question has to do with whether the work if the committees have worked any further if there is a project or something that we cannot uh that we can already look at straight answer no not at the moment and not yet uh we didn't receive any requests from members at the moment we didn't receive any proposals for the men from the members at the moment um we have uh recently started uh discussions on novel foods which is something that um cc luck for example recently examined and also the commission the last session recently examined um novel foods would probably include also this topic but at the moment um no members nor observers have uh raised such such proposal or such questions in in codex so currently no works on cbd thank you Giuseppe does anybody else have any other additional uh question Gustavo go ahead yes Giuseppe well fortunately knowing that this taking advantage of this cc like meeting i'd like to ask another question not just as a national bolivia card the codex committee but as a to the scientific committee because i'm concerned and i have my questions about the application and the importance that of the good farming practices and as a scientist as i am i that is very related to everything that has to do with the uh the standards for regulating pesticides and also the standards that have to do with the antimicrobial resistance and therefore i think that these two could be uh these two issues pesticides and antimicrobial uh microbial uh practices uh if and i would like to know if these works are being done to have some reference uh standards so that we can study the application of these standards in our different countries thank you uh thank you very much Gustavo unfortunately but but also fortunately i would i would have to give you the same answer that i have just given you uh because exactly these topics are going to and our part of the survey that we have recently issued and uh also to see uh our members in not just in the region but again at worldwide level have uh been applying uh the codex standards how and to what percentage they they are let me say i don't want to use the word respecting but let me say again considering translating um nation into the national legislation for example the maximum residue limits for pesticide residues or even for example we recently adopted two texts on antimicrobial resistance to see to what level they are applying that uh those standards we are also working on a few case studies uh exactly on this topic you can find one about the ASAP which is available on the codex website which includes basically all relevant information now the ASAP has been applied in in a few countries uh we are preparing something similar exactly on pesticide but also on veterinary residues in food and if i recall correctly also on food labeling but again we are working on that and everything is going to publish to be published by let's say 2023 and 2024 because the data that i have now the the numbers that i have now are a bit out of date and uh it it wouldn't be fair for me to share them with you right now because they they are not the current data and i don't know if you want to listen to data that are a bit uh thank you just said we have a comment from Mexico and Mexico technical rules not official in the economic secretary weeks for great information we are identifying risks related to other people related to fair commercial transactions and codex do you identify these risks if so how do you measure these risks okay um i know that this is going to be part of another webinar but let me let me simply give you a few uh a few notes about that um we have uh four independent scientific bodies that um analyze risks and uh they provide scientific advice specifically also on these points um we we talk about the risk associated to human health and um uh to which percentage a for example let me give you an example cadmium could hurt the health of a person the consumer health and so on these are all defined by is the initially by the fo w scientific bodies but also then by the codex subsidiary bodies um this is sort of a another sort of long part and again i don't want to take another half an hour because giving you a short answer wouldn't be correct right now uh but i will share with you the relevant information where to find uh a more precise answer on the codex website and on codex uh text uh via the chat and also if you leave me your email i can send you an email with this information thank you very much just step in this case johannes can you put your email in the chat we'll take note and move it to just have any further questions comments i don't think so the johannes we just sent us your email that you're asking if we will send this by email we will send to the contact points online where you can find the information on the webinar and the recording also we will be wrapping up now thank you again dcp for accepting our invitation i think it was a great webinar with lots of useful information we have a large number of attendees and this means it was interesting by the end of this do you want to ask something or otherwise we'll be wrapping up questions i will slave the mail of cc lake whether so we can coordinate the analysis otherwise we'll be finishing and let's turn the cameras on for a picture thank you