Food law is one of the most harmonised areas of law in the European Union and is basically initiated by the European legislative bodies in Brussels. Therefore, direct contact to the European institutions is essential in order to be timely informed about future developments. Especially, envisaged law proposals in their early development stages can effectively be in-fluenced, for example, by pointing out the impact a legislative proposal has or may have on the food industry. Moreover, through specific factual information on behalf of the economy a greater practical relevance can be incorporated into European draft legislation. Thereby it is indispensable to have detailed knowledge of the internal decision-making process as well as the ability to identify the persons involved and selectively approach them.
Increasingly, individual authorisation procedures are assigned to the European decision-makers, in particular the European Commission and the European Agency for Food Safety Authority (EFSA), for example the authorisation of novel foods, the (new) authorisation of food additives and the decontamination of products of animal origin etc.
Therefore, the intensification and institutionalisation of our commitment in Brussels is con-sistent with our objective to further develop our range of services. We are proud that we could win Attorney Jens Karsten, as an official business partner and as our contact man in Brussels.
Attorney Karsten is a German- and English- educated lawyer and an European Law specialist active in Brussels since 1998. He has worked for several years as a legal consultant in the European Commission’s Directorate General responsible for food law. As an experienced lobbyist in Brussels he became last year part of the Krell Weyland and Grube team in order to manage our EU representative office in Brussels. Set up in the centre of the European district, we now thanks to Mr. Karsten are also directly on site when it comes to decision making in the EU.
We are convinced that this step is not only a useful complement to our range of services, but a necessary step to ensure comprehensive and forward-looking advice as well as representa-tion of the mandates we attend to.
