 Franz Vestrade, you work in the European Commission in the Director General for Health and Food Safety. When did you first hear the word Codex? Well, the first time I heard about Codex was in 1996. Then I came to the European Commission and I started to work on aflatoxins and then it was the first time that I also heard about Codex and the Codex Committee on Contaminants and Food Additives. And where does your passion for Codex work come from? Well, this passion from Codex comes of course, it's part of my work because indeed we are working on standards and we also have to take into account what happens at international level but it is also important to see how indeed on the discussions how the different viewpoints can then be consigned into one single Codex standard which is applicable worldwide. What are the major milestones that you recall from your career in Codex? Well, I think I have my best memories and most intensive discussions are on the aflatoxin standards in tree nuts where when indeed we started off at the beginning with very divergent views, European Union with the strict levels and a lot of other member countries in Codex with indeed higher levels because of the reasons of why they could not produce with lower levels and so on and through indeed a few years of very intensive discussions in Codex and outside Codex but with the member countries we came to a standard on which even the EU could indeed agree upon. So that was indeed I think an important milestone. I would say that when indeed the issue is brought up here in Codex of course it brings also awareness in these countries and also indeed even if indeed the standards we are setting here in Codex are sometimes less strict than the EU. I think they are very important for public health worldwide because it brings awareness amongst the producers worldwide and they are also looking into applying good practice to bring the levels as much as down as possible taken into account their production conditions and it is indeed of benefit for all consumers all over the world. What was the most challenging piece of work that you've been involved in in Codex? To come to consensus on several issues I think we had several points where we had discussions for instance also on the code of practice for dioxins and PCBs where indeed we had a lot of experience within the EU with our comprehensive legislation but I think there also we had quite lengthy discussions on coming to a code of practice at the end where everyone could agree upon it. What working Codex would you really like to see finished? I think the urgency is still I think we work a lot on codes of practices but I think we should also a bit more work on indeed real maximum levels real standards which are really important for the international trade of course codes of practices are the starting point good practices but indeed if you come with and I see that also within the European Union if indeed you have in combination with codes of practices then also maximum levels that this does encourage and indeed also a bit obliged to indeed apply that all operators in the food and the production chain apply the code of practice. We've heard here in this meeting about new protein sources and what do you see as the challenges for the future for this committee? Well I think we have to be very vigilant and because indeed we get all these new novel food sources on which indeed we while they are the nutritional profile is known because that's the reason why they are brought forward as new sources for food but of which indeed there are new technologies for producing them for which we do not necessarily know what kind of contaminants they can contain and I think we have to be very vigilant and also ensure that indeed once we identify a potential issue that we really bring this forward and that we tackle this from in the beginning because the point is that if we detected too late maybe then this trend of these new food is then stopped because then people say oh but there is this big risk and we have to be proactive trying to recognize the risk and to deal with the risk. Franz, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today. Thank you.