 available so that you can select the language of your preference English and Spanish. We will also have the recordings and presentations in both languages which will be shared in the page. These materials will be shared in the chat pod. Remember to keep your microphones off so as not to interrupt the interpreters and having the room and the meeting well organized. If you have questions, please write them using the chat pod. We will be reading them at the end of the presentation so as not to interrupt the speakers. Is Amanda in the session? I can see Amanda right there. So let's begin today. We'll have Amanda Lasso from Costa Rica. She has a master's in master's degree in nutrition with over 14 years of experience in development of Codex Elementary standards and technical food regulations. She's the national coordinator of the Codex Committee on dairy and dairy products. In addition, she provides support in the management of the FAOHO coordinating committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, the executive committee, and the general affairs of the Codex Elementary Commission, among other committees. Let me welcome you Amanda. Let me thank you for being willing to help us in our work in the region. It's a real honor to have you here and we are ready to listen to your presentation. Thank you Daniela. Good morning everyone. It's a pleasure being here with you today. Thank you for the invitation. Ecuador is doing a great job trying to strengthen the the work of different countries in the strengthening of capabilities to improve the management of each one of these countries in everything that has to do with their Codex. It's a pleasure being with you and let me try to share my screen. Danny, you let me know. Can you see my full screen? Yes, go ahead Amanda. Thank you Danny. I've been requested to discuss the best practices for participation of delegates. Yesterday in Leonardo's presentation he offered a very thorough introduction as to the management and the history of Codex. I will kind of repeat, emphasize some aspects that I don't know whether all of you actually attended yesterday's presentation. I will have to do so, so as to focus on the second part of my presentation, which is the participation of delegates. Becoming a delegate representing our countries is not, it does not start when they tell me that I have to attend the meeting and read the documents. This is a work that takes several months and what would you do right before the meeting is when we go through the diplomatic representatives. But when we send a delegate from our country, it's really important that, indeed, to be thoroughly involved in the managing process of the country position prepared to be submitted to the meeting. I'll apologize with interpreters because I've been speaking very fast and that's one of my defects. Let me try to keep a regular pace of presentation or, Daniela, you let me know. Let me discuss some general aspects, something that Leonardo already referred to yesterday, to the coex and the relationship with the international organization agreement. So follow-up of Codex consultations proceeded to prepare and agree on a country position. Best practices to carry out a successful international participation and what to do if I have a standard proposal. We're not always defending a country position. Sometimes we have an additional responsibility such as submitting a new award proposal to Codex. So all those aspects are important to take into consideration. Some general aspects on the agreements, on the World Trade Organization, just the only international organization dealing with multilateral standards of dealing or ruling trade among countries. Unimportant pillars that as delegates, we have to be fully knowledgeable at least in the basics because when we attend a meeting, we don't know what will happen. Sometimes we're focused on learning our country position, but we also need to know the background. Why Codex is important for countries and some of those pillars may be supported in the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, agreed with governments and ratified by the legislators. Those are some of the topics and some of the trade negotiation rounds for Central America. Some are different than those from South America. This is something to be taken into account as well as for the Caribbean. So we have to take into consideration what are the agreements that our countries have to follow in international meetings. For food, first we have the agreement of a fit of sanitary and sanitary measures application agreement to protect health and the life of people, life of animals to preserve vegetables and the technical barriers to trade. Those are the technical regulations that the procedures to conform as assessment and the application not only for food, but also for every type of product. But for food, it's actually important for us. These agreements meet some of the legitimate goals which have to be borne in mind. Those agreements are protecting the human and animal life from the presence of additives, contaminants, toxins or pathogens in food, protecting human life from diseases propagated by animals and vegetables, protecting the life of animals and preserve vegetables from pests, diseases or pathogens, prevent or limit the damages caused to our countries as a result of the entry of propagation of pests. So that's why we have to be knowledgeable of the rules, regulations and laws enforced in our countries. According to the agreement, member countries have to guarantee that any sanitary or fit of sanitary measure is only applied when necessary to avoid the application in order to create these guys restriction to foreign trade. In summary, food safety is directly related to these international agreements and focus on the protection against diseases, pests or pathogens among biological beings, humans, animals and plants. So the agreement of sanitary measures in this context, the standards, guidelines and recommendations by the Commission as an international reference for food safety. I mean the Commission of Codex Alimentarius. These are some of the examples of such legitimate objectives, the protection of food safety and security, safety belts, plugs. But for this case, for this topic, we have to do with the protection and environment prevention of practices leading to errors. And that's why we have labeling, classification and definition of products among other legitimate objectives such as quality, size of fruits, size of vegetables. Let me remove this stripe from here. As I said, these agreements cover the agricultural and industrial aspect. So for that, we have technical rules, Codex or other international agencies such as ISO or other standard technical standard organizations in the private nature, working at the domestic level, the national level. The difference between technical rule and a standard is that the technical standard, any standard ISO, Codex or any other national organization, standards are non-mandatory. Do you have to pay for them except for Codex because this is for governments? And they have to be adapted to our processes in order to improve and guarantee quality and safety, depending on the type of standard for consumers. And of course, in order to improve practices that will allow for trade at large scale, exporting my products for instance. But these are non-mandatory. Technical regulations are mandatory. That is the big difference between the two. So when a country issues a technical rule, applications absolutely mandatory. And these documents have to go through a conformance evaluation. And by that, I mean the tests run verification process in the market at the point of sale, inspection, certifications, registration, sampling among other aspects. I believe I have a frozen screen. Daniel will stop sharing and then I will do that again because I think I have a glitch here. Danny, could you please confirm that you can, my skin, okay, I will turn my camera off because I believe I have a band with problem. My apologies. Okay, yesterday it was an explanation on the Codex Alimentarius. So it's a set of standards, guidelines, and codes of practices used by governments to protect the safety and quality of food and for trade of these food items. Codex has two main goals among others, but the two main goals are those that in order to, which we follow to verify compliance is to meet the protection of consumers and to guarantee fair trade. Besides meeting the goals, then we are meeting international agreements from international organizations. As I said, as we said yesterday, we have 189 members, one member organization, in this case the European Union, 243 observers, broken down into 60 intergovernment organizations, 160 NGOs, 16 UN-based agencies. That is Codex, but Codex covers 99% of the world population. So question is, why Codex? Because the opening with the free trade agreements, there is an opening of markets, there is a need set regulations for ruling the foreign trade of food. Developing countries do not have the ability to create analysis and studies in some areas on some topics. And of course, Codex provides such support to regulate their national and export and import products. Here we have the protection to consumers with developed country. This is the other objectives with which I'm sorry, the presentation is being blocked again. I'm going to start once again. Don't worry about it. Let's try again. I think now it's okay, right? Can you see the presentation? Yes, we can see it. Thank you. Why is Codex important apart from what I mentioned regarding consumers? It's because it provides safe food items and also hence the information that the consumer needs. For example, labeling of the food items, the labeling of the food items gives us all of the information that we need to know in what this food item has. And of course Costa Rica is inside that list. We have the reference here to regulate and orient the commerce that protects this health of consumers. For the production area, what generates and creates rules and obstacles for the commerce that allows to broaden the market and also gives a lot of standards and norms and texts that allows to improve production of such food items. And Codex impacts all of the production chains because they have standards that helps the production and consuming of the these food items. The maximum limit of contaminants of pesticides or plague sites and also veterinary and drugs and food items like fish and eggs and also regarding the safety of the food and general norms and standards for the labeling for additives for the production of canned foods and nutritional labeling as well. All of these texts that I just mentioned in the case of veterinary and medication, for example, plague sites, contaminants and additives, they are all these are all maximum limits and levels that are have basis on the risk analysis that are given by the committees that like Leonardo explained yesterday that are completely independent organisms that report give a report of this risk analysis. So Codex can make a decision based on scientific analysis and data. This committee mixed committee of FAO and WHO this committee is the one that gives the information for the veterinarian committee and also the contaminant committee. We also have the residue for plague sites. They have all of these they give the consult to see because they consult also the analysis of plague sites. And we also have the YEMRA. They analyze the microbiological risks. It's also a committee linked to the engineering of food items. And here we also have another committee with the GEMNU which is the committee that also helps the to give the basis of scientific analysis to food items with special needs. And so we have four organisms that are experts that in handling the scientific data needed by Codex to the decision making. So we have finished on the general part. We're going to see more in detail. What do we need to identify topics, Codex topics for international interests. We have to start with each of the countries that are part of Codex. First they have to define what are the main committees for the countries. So for this I make this question. All of the active committees in Codex it is important for us to have these committees that are active in their country. And this is a question that is very important. It depends on the capabilities on the management done through Codex. The availability of the ministries that have legal capabilities in each of the systems. All of the agendas that are being debated if these topics are of interest for my own country. These are several aspects that are important and let's not forget that Codex in its structure has horizontal committees and also committees linked to products and some of intergovernmental committees also groups that it's a lot of the committees that are open here inside Codex are linked to Codex and it is very important to each of the countries. So therefore I have to identify if all of these committees are working in each country. And so to start I have to verify in the procedure manual what is the work linked to this committee because it depends on the topics that are going to be debated in each of the agenda of each committee. And the topics being debated in each agenda depends on the interest that this country has to be able to participate in this committee apart from all of the other aspects that I commented before if we have an expert in each of the committee because each committee has a coordinator in its organization. So in a very general aspect I can comment if you have if the committees are open or working right now. But to be honest not all of the committees are efficient enough. All of the comments that are sent are not answered. They don't always give the data that we need. But if we have the infrastructure and human resource available because for example let's talk about veterinary drugs and animal health and all of the topics in the agenda are of interest for the ministry and for the management of the country. So let's say there is a person that is going to be assigned to coordinate this committee. But not all of all of the topics there but not all of the ministries have all of the human resources to tackle this topic. Let's hear. I think there's a lot of coordinators in each committee and people here are coordinators in committees but not all of them are hired specifically be the coordinator and tackle a specific topic. Most of them have work or have do everything that is inside their job description and they have to coordinate a committee that generates documents that are quite dense quite technical of technical aspect for them to read and coordinate in the national level what is going to be the position of each country. That is why I say that this part and this management done by the coordinator in a committee most of the time in most of the countries they do this because sometimes it was just assigned by the ministry and it was part of their job description but on the other hand because they love codex and they love to be involved in this topic because they love to read and be updated in everything that is being debated. We have coordinators that do read the documents and during the night the next day we open the email and they have already their position national position and their opinion about it but it doesn't always happen not even here or any other country that's for therefore it's a complicated subject because we have the manual procedure manual and we have to see what are the subjects and topics being debated in this committee to see if this topic it is important in the national level. This is so for us it is important important to identify what are the topics that are interesting for our country. I'm not going to turn on my camera because every time I turn it on the screen freezes so I'm going to turn off my camera keep my camera off and I'm going to continue my presentation like this until the end. I'm going to continue with my presentation I already mentioned some aspects in which committee should we participate review the procedure manual what are the topics that are related to the safety of the food items which is of interest for your country what are the topics that are more interesting for the consumers what are the main agricultural products for export or import internationally speaking what are the agri-elementary priorities identified by your government what are the resources for example time funds and that you can link to national codex what is the codex that establishes standards text regarding the waiting list that we mentioned before so all of this to identify the previous committees you can review the mandate for each committee in Costa Rica for example all of the committees are working they're active because we did an internal activity so we evaluated this internal activity was done in 2009 where we identified that all of the committees that were active back then and all of those that were not active but are active now we identified that this was the interest of the country and therefore all of the committees have to be working and active like I mentioned before this was not the best way to manage this but we tried to do our best work with taking all of this into consideration we should always remember that the omsi o m c and the commission of codex have agreement specifically the agreement of the real show says that to have a harmony the sanitary measures as phytosanitary measures the members will pass their measure the standards in guidelines recommendations that are of international agreement and in this agreement we say that the commission mixed commission fowl wh o for elementary safety is of capabilities and for standards for food safety so when this is a reference because its standards and its texts are based on site a technical and scientific evidence in Costa Rica we adopted we adopt codex measures be partially or completely more than 65 percent of the standards for food items are adoption from codex and sometimes partially adopted codex doesn't have a standard for all of the products when there is no codex standard we then refer to other international organizations like it is established in the agreement itself so a product of this for example and we have the quantity of technical national agreement norms and we also adopted in the agreement that we have for the international or borders and we also the ones that we are applying so for the norms are the norms for central american norms so to adopt these agreements technical agreements for central america we take codex in the cases of additives for example for the technical norms guidelines we complement with other international organisms we have the one for labeling for example the quantity for food items that are labeled nutritional labels and also for canning and others that are taken as only as an example so why codex is so important that's the mechanism to submit national regional concerns and defend the interests of a country that's creating and building consensus and looking for support in other regions defending the arguments of national positions and to offer opinions and on some other country's opinions decisions of the commission are made by majority and they provide long-term continuity to international negotiation processes since codex in that the codex negotiations are long and these are not short wins funded by scientific evidence so it is important to have a working plan and that should be the same as the strategic plan worldwide but we build the working plan for the region for the coordinator to carry out its work but also must be a national plan because codex works differently in every country each country has different priorities different topics of interest and therefore there must be an annual work plan i know coordinators many times are not familiar with this working plan but it's part of the secretary but the point of contact to interact with the coordinators for them to be aware of the macro or the overall operation of the country but some coordinators just focus on their own committee and following the agenda of the committee but they failed to know the overall umbrella operation so that's part of the secretariat and the point of contact so considering the annual work plan leads to the operation of subcommittees coordinator and the membership there must be an interest from the industry that is back to the topic even though i could have an active committee on foot hygiene and we're discussing say water maybe that topic it's not important for my country so there is no need to spend some time so we must identify with the national and productive sector what are the topics of interest and this is the role of the coordinator the coordinator manages the committee together with each one of the members of the committee or national committee we also have to see whether there is an availability of national technical support sometimes we say okay let's sign in for this topic or let's be part of these committee let's activate it and this is out my own experience right now we have the an active committee upon request spices these week we're holding meet informal meetings of the working group and this morning we didn't have a criteria to offer opinions and the technicians said this is an important topic for the country but when we say please we need a review of what we are supporting for a specific spice nobody knows so we need to know whether whether it's good to keep the committee open or not active or not despite the role of the coordinators we need to take into consideration what i've just said some horrors are there are horizontal and product committees therefore especially for horizontal so it's because products are very specific but horizontal are challenging hygiene uh methods methods of analysis uh labeling so they're extremely challenging to manage because say say uh put hygiene or or or water we have parasites we have viruses and the coordinator is not an expert so he or she needs to put together some committees to provide support to each one on each one of these topics parasites for instance we have to rely on the national animal health system whatever the name might be in your country so we need to identify who or what of the ministries or agencies in the topic has to support because the coordinator cannot by him or herself do the whole thing on on on the road so they're responsible to to prepare the the the country position but the contribution has to be provided but all the competent agencies that's why it's so important to value the availability to such technical support the impact on national regulation i'm developing these standard is there is there a possibility to turn these into a technical regulation is there trade foreign trade in my country to whether to to know whether it is important to be part of the debate another topic language translation when we receive documents from the from the codex they're all drafted in english and not all of us know english so we always make jokes because in the office in our office we're three technicians from the codex secretary it's just two of us and google because we're not bilingual but we we're looking for the resources i mean if something we don't understand okay we talk to google but there are far more effective places to translate and if that that's not enough we use an english platform so it is important to identify whether uh this is being discussed only in english then what can i use to to learn about the document so we have to be resourceful all these work it's part of the national secretariat and part of part of responsibilities of the coordinator of the specific committee so what are the follow-up of codex consultations now we are going into the details how do we identify the main categories of codex codex document codex has uh has uh multiple documents if we are new to it we don't know what they are and when we receive a consultation from the secretariat from roam says what's a report what's a scl or a crd what do i have to do with the document i don't know do i need to read them this is just for information purposes what should i do so it's extremely important that both the coordinator and each one of the members be aware of these documents who's responsible for reading all this the idea is to share what we do each country has a different way but that like to share what we do the way we do it and we've been successful so far when uh when an agency a private organization wants to be part of a committee when we open when we activate the committee we always train the new membership of the committee from the secretariat we support the the coordinator yeah yeah that yeah the committee coordinator in on training and how codex works what do you have to do what's the role as a member of the committee we are supported by uh regulations and government degrees we have the point of contact the secretariat the national committee the coordinator so we follow these that decrease or or rule so we're always training and if we and then we do a refreshing once a year what's the status of the committees of the different topics and a discussion so so into the details reports are identified identified as alinorm or what's the difference between the two up to 2010 2009 2010 all reports of the meetings international meetings for each one of the committees were identified with alinorm but starting 2010 they are now identified by the acronym rep which is report i will elaborate on that there are other documents for committees which are issued by each committee identified as cx others which are consultations documents court cl circular letters room documents crds and approved texts so let's elaborate on them alinorm or rep as they are called right now in the bottom half of the screen the top part of the screen is until 2010 before that they were called alinorm right because you may attend a pesticide the meeting next year and and a country could say that in the meeting number 33 in 2010 and the report reads so-and-so and he makes a reference to alinorm and if you're not aware of that you don't know what they're talking about so it's important for you to be aware but now as you see at the bottom with the rep 21 rep means that's a report to a meeting and in this report there's a summary of the debate a summary of the discussion during the meeting on the different topics 21 means the year of the session then and dp are the committee acronyms general principles but if subcommittee is added tips okay the the will be f a if it's pesticides will be per the one and so forth then then let's discuss the documents under the code cx on the left side cx f a 22 52 8 october 2021 this is a draft a draft for the rule of safe reuse of water in the manufacturing of food cx then means a document that might be under consultation but before the international meeting look at it that says a members and observers uh willing to offer observations on these drafts should do follow indications of so so on so on for what are those acronyms that's for the plenary session meeting but that once received over the email sent by the secretary or through the official platform you can gain access to the document if it's open for comments then we'll have these box here if the document does not have these box means it's not open for comments before the debate but you can do so during the debate now eight uh following this uh convention cx it reads f h f h it's the acronym for the food hygiene committee of course the summarized matter but the the full acronym is cc f h but for the coding purposes f h means food hygiene then 22 which is the meeting the year of the meeting 58 that's the number of the 50 seconds meeting of food hygiene committee in 2022 that uh it was just made up because uh food hygiene meeting will take place now the next November and number eight eight is the sequential number of the document to be discussed so when we start a meeting we discuss we have a topic one two three so for this example this is the topic number eight in the agenda on to the acronyms circular letter on the left that's the acronym uh request observations on the guideline project it means you're being requested an observation or a common cl it's a circular letter that said it's a consultation document 2021 that's the date though when these uh letter was issued 72 is the sequential number of the circular letter every year it's restarted so we'll start one two three uh 2022 that's it this is the letter number 72 regardless of the committee f eight is as i said food hygiene the document is a document that generally it is distributed during the meeting but during the last years with technology these documents are sent almost at the beginning of the meeting um a week before and the secretary in code of codex uploads it to the platform before we could only find it before the meeting physically the document itself physically they has a date also the language is the original language and which was written uh in region the region we always try to send it in Spanish and English so other countries that are don't speak Spanish can read it as well these are documents where you can present your opinion or your position when cdx did not answer or cl did not answer but consider it important that your position and your opinion is reflected in a document and the plenary the chairman the chair will say okay now we're going to discuss the subject topic number eight and we're going to the refer to the document uh one two three four five six etc and these are the codes for all of the rest of the documents the standards are there uh the documents uh with the text that are always the standards that were approved the stamp the number of the standard and the year that it was approved we always codify with the cac commission of elementary codex and rcp in English and it's a practice code and the year that was issued and with the elementary codex commission with gl in English and the number of the document and the year that was issued all of the documents here we have the coding of the text i'm going to give you an example and the fit in the end codex stamp 2010 and 1999 so the practice practice codes and also the last one on in 1993 and the last one in 1991 here you can find for example the one regarding b guidelines which was approved it's the guideline number one which was the first one as you can see it's an old one from 1999 but it has a review that's why it says it was reviewed the number one review was done in 1998 this is just an example so you can see how it is let's continue with the presentation since you already know all of the codes of a coding of codex now we are going to see what are the procedures to be able to get a consensus in a position of a country here the success is the sum of small successes that we get every day so we have the point of contact with the secretary we're going to have a good position of your country and an active participation in Costa Rica as i mentioned before i'm just to go quickly over it we have a law and the document for the secretary and the point of contact and here we have a point of contact for the coordinators as well in the the decree 33 to 12 if you want to see this decree it is a public document and i can share it with you here we work as a mirror for codex in uh international level what does this mean it means that in codex or globally speaking we have a mirror for codex we have the national secretary which is the mirror of the one in Rome we also have the regional committee for Latin American the Caribbean which is part of the regional committees and the subcommittees which are national subcommittees that in some countries in some cases they call it mirror committees we call it the national subcommittees which are the committees that are horizontal committees for products that are working in globally yesterday this was explained already that's why i'm just going to go over fast it with codex is broken down in six regions now the coordinator for Latin American the Caribbean is the Ecuador as i mentioned before we have all of the committees that are active each one of them are known by their um stands as in English here we are going to see for veterinary and medication the medications the ccfa for also special regimens the ccrs fsdu etc here generally speaking when we have long names we we then can say the acronym and we can also say for example the committee ccpl ccfl so you can identify with each committee however you prefer with acronym or not for the members of each committee each committee has its own coordinator or is working in charge of the coordinator like i mentioned before and and it is a lot of areas make part of this by each decree it is part for example of the industry of the chains of the ministries that have legal legal role by the consumers by the observers they are all part of these committees and we have several committees as you can see here those that i mentioned are all of the committees that are horizontal committees let's not forget that the horizontal committees are the one that apply to every different types of products and there are some products that are specific products for example committees for fruits and vegetables for norms for chile dulce norms for standards for peña in the case of a chile the business in chile for example jelly for products that are milk based etc or herbs that are for cooking and vegetables and we have also have the groups of internal activities these are only open if there's a specific subject there's not a specific committee for this it's just to debate a specific topic the last time it was active it was about the license of antimicrobial licenses those that i mentioned about these specific products are just an example not all of them are active now most of them actually are not active so up to date so this is a structure that was shared by daniella it is updated because in the procedure manual in the part of original committees in coordination it is updated because the coordinators now are different the coordinators that are you can see the graph here i'm seeing daniella is going to share with you this graph so you can see better later on what i just explained the technical committees general technical committees the product the committees linked to products and those that are active there are a few like i mentioned in this case for example the one of oils the one of the herbs and also fish and also processed vegetables here we can they're the only ones that are active those that are stand by we are not debating on these they're closed but if you go into the official website of the codex you can see all of the standards that are approved for each one of the committees and on the right part of the screen are the special groups that i just mentioned of specific products and on the left hand side you can see the committee of antimicrobial resistance on this same graph you can appreciate each of the countries that are here is the country that is a host of the meeting so for example the committee for Haiti is for pesticides or pesticides and is the host is china this means that the worldwide the meeting for the pesticides or additives is always in china a few years to date up to the date we give a opportunity to any country that wants to be a host of the meeting and they can do it generally we do it through the secretary or the presence of the specific committee they communicate this will to be also a host or co-host and they get into an agreement for example not long ago there was an engineering of the food items it was in Panama and the coast coast was Paraguay and like this for example veterinary and drugs if five or seven years ago was in Costa Rica and now it changed so this can be done just as an example now we have the national committee and in charge of each ministry regarding its legal competencies we do then we have some committees linked to it in the specific case in the case of ministry of industry and commerce where I work because we're a point of contact with the secretary we have we're in charge of the management of committee for example the elementary cortex and the executive committee yesterday was explained what the executive committee meant it is a consultant group for the coordination and CC LAC was also a coordinator for the Latin America and the Caribbean and also the committee of general principles and we also had the committee for labeling because of its legal capacities it is linked to the ministry of economy and we also have the committee for import and export of food which and also for herbs and culinary herbs and these three last ones that I mentioned ccp ccs ch and cc f f v are committees that are not have are not uh legal competence of the the ministry of economy but it was left without coordination because those those people in charge of the coordinator after the pandemic they said we cannot continue being cord the coordinators for these groups so we gave them back the coordination we are doing a follow-up meanwhile we find people to coordinate it the committee for fruits and herbs which is and vegetables which are the last one that we have we are doing a follow-up for many years now but the coordinator the coordinator is the service of fit the sanitary safety here we have the service of health animal health for contaminants of foods and also fish and these are specific for the committee of animal health legally speaking and this week we just found uh some people the legal competence is for the ministry of health and the ministry of health said we cannot continue working with this like I told you before from the beginning if the ministry has some resources to be able to do a follow-up with the committee and to assigned somebody to do a follow-up to the subject seen in there so the service of animal health said look we can take on this job and now last week they said they didn't want to do it anymore so unfortunately we have a new institution that can do the follow-up for this committee so that we have no problems there now in the future this graph is going to change and the fit the sanitary service legally speaking it is corresponded corresponds to the plagiarist side committee the ccms has the coordination of the analysis and sample taking method and all of this is in charge of the ministry of agriculture nationally speaking the ministry of health legally speaking does a follow-up but the committee of contaminants is also linked to them and the special regimen committee and also the committee of food engineering and that we have a success case in the country it's not the same way that we handle this in other countries but we have the committee for additives that it's been active ever since its creation is coordinated by the industry in this case the chamber of elementary industry of Costa Rica the rules and the norms says establishes that organisms of the private sector can coordinate a committee but it has to follow what is in the norms those that are in charge of the coordination the person in charge of the coordination she has been in China in the meetings for many years she is a protector of the interests of the industry and of the country but this is before the committees of codex all of the position that comes out of the country is approved by the national committee in this moment we have the committee committee of vegetables and fruits without coordination this is also under the supervision of the technical secretary because and first the oil committee doesn't have fats and oils doesn't have interests in the country but we're doing a follow-up but the fruits and vegetables we still have a few subjects that are being debated through emails after telling you all of this we were going to see what are the topics on our position as a country to be able to do the follow-up of this standard we have to see the documents of the acronyms that i told you before the cx and c all are the documents to start with the elaboration of a position of the country when there's a worldwide meeting we talk of the engineering of the foods for example that we have in the in november let's talk about the technical committee during the year already gave a follow-up and an answer to cx not cx because usually we have they start with two months before the beginning of the meeting this is how it's done through the manual of the procedures and we will answer the letters and we answer the group works that are developed electronically in the platform so before a country position i have to make sure what has been the positions have been submitted so that when i build my own country position my position should not contradict that does not mean that the country cannot change a position that is in the document in the cl 60 and say i reply that i was for a given topic or other way around with the proper support and then i i now realize that now we are for it if it's a contradiction that these will require a justification and we have to be very clear that we're changing our position on the right hand there's a screenshot of the country position matrix if this is just an example so on the left that's the topic topic one and two then the next column is the link to access the document a summary of the document because when the matrix is sent to the national committee it's much easier to have a summary of the topic and how we said it before since we said it before the session this is an explanation of what this all about country position and notes for the delegate that is that's a column we have added because when we when we have the cc lack meeting equator maybe has an interesting position that probably we can support or that the Dominican Republic is concerned with something and we have a fail to identify that so those are the notes we include as a reminder maybe we can negotiate we can reach an agreement to a better explanation of the position and then have all these information before the meeting to prepare the country position to follow at least five phases distribution of working documents we download that them from the platform if the coordinator will not do and then we circulate those documents the coordinator will distribute these documents to the stakeholders the membership of the committees and the coordinator will draft a country position proposal document before above from the draft before the national and the national committee it is a proposal then we obtain the national support that is after drafting the document this is submitted to all the members and request their input they agree if they disagree how can we improve the drafting how can we if they're not if they do not agree explain why anything else to add explain why you're adding so and submitting the position as a written observation when it applies that is I can reply this in reply to the cl or the cx or through a room document remember the cre it's a document where I can submit a country position never never submitted before or to express a concern which has been expressed before but that this is not being taken into account but that I want to ratify there are certain general criteria we have for setting that country position and a country position it's called so when this has been consulted with all the stakeholders that is the academia industry governments and so forth the coordinator it's important that this is a this is a good piece of advice the coordinator has to be familiar with information with the background on the topic to set the position in this context those attending the meeting the coordinator if not possible he was not authorized whoever attends the meeting whoever was assigned as a that's a delegate has to be familiar with all the background information to defend not a good idea to sit at the meeting the we're representing my country but knowing nothing was being discussed and this is quite bad for the country so it's extremely important to be familiar with the background information to to know whether we have a sound scientific foundation supporting the position supporting data on the risk assessment yet another aspect is the positions of proposed to add international promoted at the international level i'd be compatible with the national policies in the the proposal of standard they say they want to include something which is not consistent with my local regulation fresh fruits and vegetables in the product standard i wanted to include the land percentage in costa rica there is a law that forbids that the very important the vegetable products so have a soil residues so we justified that our position in that case we disagree because we have a law in place this is a yet another aspect ask other committees for instance if i have a meeting in the committee of additives or dairy products ask the dairy product committee they are the experts remember i said i said make sure if it's important to ask other committees why because the dairy product committee is the experts so we did have an experience we're included in the additive standard where the dairy products did not agree so it's always important to ask all the stakeholders so that the country position is consistent with the with all the stakeholders and supported by the national committee and the competent ministry this is a brief flowchart of how we prepare the country position will review the reply to the cl cx and the answers offer at the gte's the coordinator we always work with the secretary that the coordinator us too we have we we work on both committees providing technical support for pesticides or or for additives so the coordinator will meet will first uh we have a meeting in the morning uh using uh these electronic platforms and and we offer a proposal of our country position once we have it then the coordinator will send out over the email so that we can circulate that with the national committee each one of them has to review that has to offer their inputs and to support them uh this has to be over the email if it's a country position metric for for for an in for a meeting in person there is a call or could be in person or virtual meeting then we discuss topic by topic from this matrix and they uh support them after that if they fail to reply over the email we send a request or an invitation uh the meeting we meet we discuss that and they will support that revisions are made and they finally support the document and these document the last portion is a country position no longer is no longer a proposal this has been already supported and this will be taken by the delegate to the international meeting or that this will be sent as a reply to the documenting consultation it is also important to follow up all topics how especially cl's and and cx the coordinator supported by the secretary they have to check on the platforms i guess most of you are familiar with their codex a platform the ocs but the secretary or the point of contact if they have not authorized them to uh to access that they will have to download the documents and then the secretary will have to download the documents and circulate that with share that with the uh the coordinator we double check the circular letter we check for the documents attach the cl and then we resend that to the coordinator telling them what is the deadline for a reply when we don't have a reply that we still have time before the deadline so we resend an email as a reminder and considering the number of roles they have uh that uh we're still waiting for the reply so the coordinator will send us a proposal for the country position we'll send that with the time in advance for analysis for the committee to review it and depending on the on the the interest on the topic they meet with the subcommittees either person or virtually and if it's not impact well not that it's not important but if it's easy to discuss the proposal is made and this is sent over the email once we have the observations supported by all the committee this is sent to the national committee for their support and then we reply to the secretariat over the email or we upload the comments to the platform so how we support the country position to the national committee this is snapshot of our country position we explain the the topic in a summary the coordinator will will present on the country position or whoever will attend the meeting I think I'm going backwards as I said part of the follow-up of these documents and these are these are just recommendations this has been very successful for us you have to be proactive the coordinator has to be proactive the secretariat have to be proactive not the point of contact with the point of contact it's just the name representing the commission and the page and the secretariat but the point of contact it's a minister or as a director so whoever does the process is always the secretariat of course supported by the point of contact always a look for support from a cc lack if it's a challenging topic if you need support if you feel that you are alone with your country position look support from from the regional country so that they can help you with the member countries in the region to further support your position identify what countries have a similar country position and work on a work on a room document we we work on the CRDs prepared by a country signed by other countries or by two countries and signed and agreed by most countries in the region we have to look for consensus whenever possible that's extremely important to provide for a good flowing discussion try to approach the chair of the gte see if you have a topic if you have a concern on a proposal which is being developed by the codex and you see that you don't understand or that the position is uh fully up fully the opposite you can always contact the chair of the gte ask for a meeting discuss the concern and that this used to be very difficult because technology was not widely used so this is as it is now so if you know the procedures of codex well there are eight processes or steps discussed thoroughly yesterday by leonardo i will just give you this snapshot so as not to elaborate on it this is a this is a chart which was described yesterday so this is a this is a sort of a depiction of that explanation on the process however let me briefly discuss the different steps and that you in one of the uh working groups uh we have a proposal from uh from uh from a stakeholder it could be a company or the ministry says we need a tax or a guideline or a standard and codex to address this issue and then there must have to be an issue uh uh aiming at the goals so of uh the codex to protect health health of consumers and fur trade practices this case castorica found a leading country for supporting this case at new zealand this is a strategic and let me go back to it this is important in order to advance our our our topics we have been uh we have been growing very powerful our countries are being recognized but probably one country in isolation is not powerful enough but if supported from the eu or or the us then the position becomes becomes stronger the document requires an objective the scope of the standard we need that deadline for the preparation of the document we started in 2016 and we just finished this in 2021 that is five years and with a year that were where we uh did not have any meeting because of the pandemic and additional the these committee meets every 18 months so as you can see there were really three meetings a document that was uh very sensitive was a really challenging this is uh labeling uh and in packaging especially developed countries okay we already have i says uh i will not change what i have a as a result of the codex so we had to find this was a guideline so that if you want to implement this i mean you have to follow this step so we have to be very careful in what uh we are going to suggest that we plan some of the principles and nothing more like this so this part was in the process one as you can see in 2018 we are starting despite the fact that we planned it in the first meeting that was 2016 already later then a group of electronic work began because the majority of the codex documents are developed electronically just to uh mobilize and manage more quickly because the codex the meetings of certain committees are each 18 others are each year and if we wait for them to debate them only in plenary added that there are many agenda issues because of course they would spend too many years without advancing then in the 45th meeting of the etiquette committee uh we presented it in tramite 2 we received the comments during the plenary and it was approved in tramite 3 we came and we worked in the group of work through the electronic platform all the comments that go and come are in tramite 4 when we go to the next meeting then it is already a fluid debate is achieved if the countries yesterday that depends on what goes from tramite 5 to tramite 5 8 that is to say that the tramite is skipped there if the 7 depends on the consensus that there is to advance if the document is according to the interests of each country the concerns are included we see that there is nothing more to debate then it is the time to skip the tramite 6 and the tramite 7 but if it is a document of too much debate a document that does not achieve a consensus can be kept in tramite 5 can be kept in tramite 4 and can pass the years and it does not happen there that depends on document 5 document 6 it depends on the consensus it depends also that the worries of most of the countries are there then in the debate and this is what happened with the labeling because of the virtuality of it we could do three informal virtual meetings where we worked a lot and then we took it all the way to plenary that was already all worked out and we had a consensus that's why we went from step number five to step number eight now to finish at 10 30 for in Costa Rica hour and we have a few of his face for the q&a at the beginning of the year we sent a document to the chair that is in charge of the coordination specifying what are the topics when the meeting is going to be and why it's important to participate if we do this and there are many response that we don't have resources because of any specific reason and they cannot participate then we look for an agreement on cooperation sometimes with the ita and then we do a contest that with the participation of the project together with them we have to present a proposal why it's important to participate they need to have a very active participation during the year so we can then be open to a possible support in the participation on the other hand if it is not possible then we look then to train the second people in the chamber and then we explain in detail what is the position of the country and we write it in the tips for delegates step by step how they should intervene the delegate has to have an ease in one to speak and be one to participate in a debate and have abilities in negotiating it has to be organized and have methodologies participation with teams hopefully they can handle and speak different languages they have to know the procedure manual they have to find knowledge of the committee which is participating on the knowledge of the reality of the country what are going to be the decisions the results of the decisions that they make because a delegate can have a position an opinion and there they have to decide if they change it or not depending on how the scope changes on how the environment changes and what are the benefits and what are the results of this decision in the country and like I mentioned before knowledge about the agreement of obstacle technical obstacles for fiddle sanitary issues it's been a while that I hadn't my screen hasn't been frozen can you see me now moving thank you Amanda don't worry about it okay thank you now they asked themselves if I was assigned as a delegate for the country how should I organize myself before the meeting who needs to be in the meeting what should we talk about what is the position of the country how do we proceed with the opinion of the position of the country what material should I take where should I register to which meeting should I which meeting should I attend who can go with me where should I look for all of the information on this meeting if I'm a person that I have never attended a meeting and where it's his mind can become cows with all of this responsibility they have in their backs so it's part of the day to day life but we should never forget that is a very important responsibility if the person that is going to be attending that meeting is not whichever person it is I'm representing my country in that meeting that we should never forget this when we attend this meeting so when we prepare that meeting it depends on the degree with which the national committee is working with the structure of the committee that we're working with and first of all we get the invitation and the program and the documents for the meeting it is the responsibility of the secretary or the point of contact to inform the future delegate that all of this information is available and also they should be reviewing in the ecotics official page if now with the virtuality of it we have the agenda for the previous meetings like I mentioned today we started in the three in the morning with the informal meeting that is virtual and where you can see it in the agenda so the future delegate has to participate that they don't have to participate the should participate of the meeting so they can know what is going to be debated what are the worries of the country and this helps them to strengthen their position as a country a delegation has two categories the chairman of the delegation and the people that are the consultants of it so the chairman is as it indicates is the one that directs the delegation and in the case of our country that sometimes we have one person there it we cannot be a chairman and also consultant but the countries that have a lot of delegates they have a delegate for each topic it is easier for them to debate in every country and in every subject so we always always have to have a chairman of the delegates independent of it even if they have a lot of delegates or not then once we establish this during the debate if they have us the support of the diplomatic mission then it's perfect then they have to express their opinions on their position as a country they have to be always paying attention is one of the limitants that we have for example we don't even we can sometimes we can even go to the bathroom when it's just one delegate in the meeting it's a huge responsibility of other delegates or it is a consultant that he can be there he cannot speak with the delegates unless the chairman of the delegates let says I'm the president I'm going to give the word to this consultant and the positions cannot be contrary to the ones that have been already established during the national committee what do we have to decide before a meeting the delegate of the national committee and with its committee and the national coordinator they have to decide I already mentioned this they have to organize all of the documents that I already explained to you before to so during the meeting we don't have different opinions which who should be the delegate we have to verify that the delegate has a capabilities is agile because sometimes we have delegates that sometimes we have to help them with the travel agreement for example but there are other delegates already know what they have to do the secretary has to register the delegate it's not the delegate the one that registers themselves in the official webpage there is an access code that it only the point of access has it so therefore the delegate cannot register himself we has to read the procedure manual study it's his position as a country and there's a manual of good practices for participating that is written by Daniel Catalani a few years ago with the IKA and it's a manual that is easy to understand and gives a lot of tools to be able to improve in debating during those meetings and there is it is important sometimes that there are certain things that we don't think are relevant but it is good that we have it in mind if the country that I visit needs a specific shot for example if I go to Africa I need the yellow fever shot for my passport to be valid we have people and delegates that when they were already in the counter the airport they see that their visa was expired for example always take your documents take something near usb scripted in your computers because there are some countries where the internet is not fast and the signal is bad if I cannot upload download the document the information because sometimes the documents were not even available in time and this was a problem but they could be uploaded and downloaded from the official webpage but if your internet is not working well we cannot download it if you have the documents in hand of course it is harder to have this debate at the meeting and when especially when you're going to present your position as a country you should take it in their luggage what which things we should take in their luggage these are very obvious things but some people always forget it the main luggage and the luggage that you can take on the plane depends how far we're going there are some indications when we get into the country I I went to China and I didn't get my luggage unfortunately and I only had two sets of clothes in my small luggage and this helped me a lot and my luggage arrived really late when the meeting was already over practically so all of this we have to consider with time verify what are the agreements that was taken nationally and internationally as a CC lack for example because we can some agreements can occur in CC lack and you have to help the original coordinator to comply with this agreement this is very important always be aware of the meetings of that the CC lack sets in this case Ecuador they always send an agenda of meetings now with virtually speaking we can always meet up before in whichever country the meeting is going to happen virtually and every time we see now that the people want don't want virtual meetings anymore they want present meetings and we don't know if they're going to be maintained virtually or we have to meet physically so we have to be doing the follow-up to see where we're going to meet if it's virtually and what time etc before every meeting there is conversation for delegates and it is important if you participate as a delegate this will help you a lot one day before on Sunday they open the registry because the meetings are on Monday they open the registry on Sunday so you can register yourself and participate as a delegate of your country all of this please try to do it the day before so you don't do it on Monday and you don't enter the room or the meeting late and if you received your your information on Monday the plenary starts at 9 don't arrive at 9 5 or 9 arrive early maybe 8 25 8 40 independent of each person of course but please identify where your chair is at so you don't start going over people to be seated on your seat these are very basic things but I promise you it is important to have them in mind before the plenary how many times can I where is my hand can I intervene for how long there's a limit the time limit for my intervention all of these rules of chair when they open the event they say it and they say but usually now during the pandemic in the virtual meetings it happens but when we have the present meetings they you have two minutes to intervene to give your opinion that is why it's important for you to write down exactly what you want to say and say thank you chairman Costa Rica has opinion of Costa Rica this or that so you can read it and you don't just say it out of your top of your head because sometimes they're translating to three different in languages and sometimes interpretation cannot be so precise and the other countries don't understand it specifically what you meant so as a recommendation please write down your question what and write down what you need to say I already said how much time two minutes how many times how many times you want to intervene I always have any mind that your position has to be clear to ratify your position the position of the European Union but because in Costa Rica it affects our country and this and that or the United States it affects and this and that for example so as I mentioned before be brief be quite clear and precise with what you're going to say don't invent don't say it at the top of your head I will assure you that interpretation is not going to be the best one and everybody and not everybody will understand what you meant now to summarize when please participate in the CC like meeting in the plenary when we don't get into a consensus and what we're debating on the chair can say at the end of today's session we will open a work group in Spanish and English it has to be present you have to be present and it was going to be led by Ecuador and then you can leave after six o'clock to debate only in that specific subject every work group has a mandate so when we get to a conclusion on the subject number eight or five I'll give you an example when you come back the next day you have to come back with a proposal with something that is more structured so the chair can then suspend the plenary for example they suspend until 11 and from 11 till 12 we do a work group so we can get into an agreement during this time there's never a work group that is apart from the plenary because if we have we're only one delegate we have we need to decide if we're going to send the plenary or go to the work group that's why they don't do it simultaneously please verify if it is important in practice we were doing this and virtually speaking the president the chair of each committee was creating a meeting with each country to explain how they are going with each subject each topic if they're late for their proposals to go from step five to step eight or do step five six seven eight and these meetings are occurring please be present during the plenary with the documents that are there they're in the official webpage but the chair can say let's continue the plenary and let's talk about the CRC number 10 that was uploaded today in the morning on the webpage and I want the opinion of this country and you have to be there if you don't have the document in your hand you don't know what to say on the subject if it's possible please always keep reviewing the webpage to see those documents after the debate like I mentioned we have the report and this report it's always available in the day during the day early during the day to review it and to see in detail to see if we agree or to see if at any moment we have our position established quite clear and we have to see if we agree with whatever was in the report here we work the lobby with other delegations because it is important to verify and to get into a consensus look there was an agreement I support this proposal and you can explain yourself and to look for a consensus we've always been in contact with each country with your country if you need to change the position of your country debate on it how is the meeting going on this etc please be aware of what you're saying this is very important once again I'm going to repeat you're representing a country not yourself please take care of your words and be very subtle on how you express yourself and express your position or answer to a comment of another country if you have a different opinion I'm sorry I have some back noise and mic is open please ask for this intervention that is opposite for you to be in the report and tackle later be present in the situations where we can participate and negotiate with other countries please take an electronic note so you can have your opinion quite clear please write down the comment over the countries because then you have to compare and see if a country did say something in the report in the report a country says I said something and the other country can say no you didn't and if you didn't take notes you can't really be quite sure because sometimes you can rely on our memory please write down the technical details identify your allies and gather the information and to see the final report which is also in English contact your country your diplomatic mission when you need some support please don't forget that we have work groups that are made and then you have to be aware of everything that is going on and it can possibly happen there is an integration protocol there's an approval of the agenda of the program if you were said in your told you in your country please ask that the subject number 13 will be tackled before on step seven this the moment for you to please require this if there's a subject that was not in the agenda then maybe you can you want to propose it this is the moment where you can propose it because after the agenda is done you cannot ask a topic to be there in the agenda when it once it is closed the chair depends on the consensus on the debate that happens what happens if we don't get into a consensus then the chair can then put the topic to another meeting he can open a work group so we can study a few specific points on the subject if we don't agree if we don't get into consensus then we send it to the commission so the commission can tell us what to do then and the commission can even recommend us to eliminate this topic and close it if we don't get into a consensus I think we can close then the presentation always do a follow-up to the topics in the platform since we don't have access to these platforms because you have because the secretary doesn't give you the point of contact please be always aware and the secretary also to be sent to send the reports less subject if you send a new work proposal you have to comply with the subject with these points that I mentioned to you that are mentioned also in the procedure manual that I explained to you when I commented about the work group presented by Costa Rica in the labeling committee always be aware of the procedure manual please talk with the secretary with the chair with the CCLAC with other regions with the chair of this committee define which language you're going to work with the national team can lead this subject when you set a subject in the table of codecs it's because you need you want to lead it so be clear when you present a subject they're going to lead it who you're going to work with which language and look for a chair a co-chair that will help you to elaborate this subject like I mentioned before in these the subject of nutritional profiles that we also lead we have the president of the united states and the european union so like I said in Costa Rica if we don't advance in this with all of this then we'll we have to work better so in codecs if you please ask the secretary how to handle the codecs in here we have if you don't know how to work with the web page of the codecs here we have the link here we have the link for all the circle the letters that are emitted every morning and here we have a link that was authorized so you can enter it and also in the platform here's a platform where all of the work groups are developed the electronic work groups is on this link the last recommendation for the virtual meetings that we are undergoing like the ones that we have now please be aware of the agenda they always inform if they have previous meetings please be aware of it please register yourself because if you don't register yourself you don't get the link and here we have the link that is with the access code with the id and in the meeting if you are chair of the delegates please put the name of the country for example Ecuador hd it means chair of delegates and then you put your name and if you're not chair of delegates just put your country and your name why because when the chair wants to get let you speak he needs to know who you are which country are you representing please have screen on your back because sometimes you your camera's on and we see things that maybe might distract us so please have a background that does not distract other people please turn off your phone keep your microphone off your camera off and because this also helps the internet to work better when we will speak we turn on the phone the microphone when not we turn it off please be respectful and don't forget about about the background to turn off your phone and also the microphone on the platform so the time on during these meetings especially in the commission and the executive committee we have a little clock that it sees that counts the time when you're speaking so please be respectful of other people's opinion as well if you don't agree with the other person's position please present your opinion in a very respectful manner this is very important finally one last idea that is very important in codex we are all one team thank you very much thank you Amanda excellent presentation we cannot applaud but if we could we could we would all be applauding at this moment we have a few questions in the chat and then I'm going to give the floor to influences who wants to comment let's go with the first question then where can we see the acronym that goes together with the codex documents there is a virtual workshop that is an old workshop but it is available in codex web page in the official web page in the part where it says documents I'm going to go back in the presentation because I don't remember it specifically but in the part where it says documents you can find everything regarding codex what and everything that codex has actually I have these courses and I can share them with you I can share the link afterwards so I don't have to look at in the the presentation now but the platform not easy for everybody the codex platform is not easy for everybody for for me it is easy because I review it every day and it says it's quite friendly but if I have never served the web page of codex it is a little hard to find the information but it is in publications in the initial page in the in the desk of the web page and here we have courses in the last years they're very dynamic dynamic courses we have courses on what is codex and how to participate on codex we have very good information a lot of books that we could share with everybody if you cannot serve the web page of codex we can send it later on thank you Amanda and we have also the procedure manual we can see them there as well cool I'll discuss that later so that I can circulate that information from you okay uh this is another question how do I know exactly the validity of the document on whether that document was uploaded to codex question one in every consultation when you receive a CL or a CX it in the introduction there's always the deadline for comments in the on the on the in my presentation there was just you will see there but the CX and the CL there's always a box of Rita um issue your comments before a given date or and use the platform or use the email and the second question what was that Danny uh the whole question how do I know exactly the validity date of a document on or when this was uploaded to codex the when was uploaded uh the secretariat will send to the point of contact a uh an email reporting that the document was uploaded but the point of contact or the secretariat managing the email is responsible for resending that information to the coordinator for the coordinator can send that to the members that on the one hand also it is the responsibility of the point of contact of the secretary when they receive an email with that means that the document is in the OCS uh to enter that again access to that download the document uh these uh because the uh the CL will only read most though um that most it's a CL number so and so comment before so they but for further information go to see OCS and the coordinator has no access to OCS so that is something that the secretary or the point of contact will have to check and also that's a responsibility of the coordinator to enter the codex the web page and see if I can share these with you quite briefly and I will explain you where to find it if you give me a second Danny let me share the screen it's not enough uh screen but this is the official web page in publications you click on that and you will find all the documents I've just or resources click on resources at CL so circular letters and then there's a display on the the different circular letters which are available this is at 2022 number 60 or methods of analysis but the code says OCS and with that I know that I have to download the document from the OCS so if I don't have access I will have to ask my point of contact to resend this document and you see here when you when it's published September 2022 the title and the deadline for reply that's February 3rd 2023 in all three languages CLs are in the three languages so I click Spanish here I will will not click on this but if I click on that I mean I will see the CL but since the code says OCS I will this is a circular letter our most of the information is in the OCS rather than in the CL that's why you have to work in close coordination with the secretariat or the point of contact so that you can get that info you can get access to that information thank you the decisions which are approved in the meetings which are part of the document for instance the rep 21 FA and CX FA 21 52 7 for additives when are they in when do we include changes in the additive standard well that depends for instance if this was if a change an update revision was approved for additive for the for the standard for the additive standard the next meeting will ratify that that is what was decided in the additive meeting this was the year before this was ratified in November that's official and that might be used by countries that's one but if that refers to that I sent comments for a request all that will be seen once there is a discussion in the plenary meeting and that every country can approve those changes but you can only be seen in the document when this is approved by the Codex Alimentarius Commission and if it's a step eight which is an update or that that's something that that will be added to the standard in the meantime it's not official and changes will be seen as they are discussed in the meeting thank you you said that one of the steps maybe may take several years is there a deadline if observations are not sorted out are these filed well that's a good question standards we had a few years ago we for process cheese discussion because the one in the code it was repealed for technological evolution so the the standard was outdated because of the technology available so this was repealed so the country suggested the new standard which took several years and that no consensus was agreed so it is the procedure manual that the chair can decide to stop the discussion and this discussion is final but as in this case some countries wanted 50 percent the cheese others there was 75 percent cheese others said i don't care if it's 75 or 50 so the chair said okay let's not waste time let's uh there is no actual need although there's not a problem there's not an issue there is no i mean we're not trying to protect health of consumers so it does not apply and we're and and we're talking for a fair trade practices and nobody could say that this was effective this was affecting our position so this was filed but the the in the committee it's completely different for instance we have deadlines with the scientific evidence from the experts were recommendations on the parameters or limits and there are some other things some other aspects which Leonardo explained yesterday nothing to do with codex management which are other factors but that some countries cannot support do not have a way to support such a position but they're not looking for consensus or they just simply oppose to it so that makes the committee chair life difficult so they they go to the different stages we have a substance uh there with the the the the discussion has been has been going for for 20 years and at stage eight nova simpad role which is on stage four several years three studies and we are still the same problem because there are certain aspects that have nothing to do with codex goals but that countries opposing to it cannot support such but we're still in the discussion and the chairman eventually will decide that there's nothing to do that we have nothing we can do so let's stop the discussion but Latin American Caribbean countries are opposing to that because in the case of cheese it was different because of quality and it was not affecting these two principles but in this case some countries have registered this some countries need that and even though the suspension or an approval it has no effect but there is no knowledge of scientific evidence and and that these topics are more specific for the debate and then the chair have to be very careful as to what decision he or she will make a proposal may take several years if there is no agreement and and if the chair cannot make the right decision thank you among them who will decide that a position is technically valid that's why i insisted on my presentation that when we and when we send observations to a proposal or to a request for comment this has to be well supported and this has to be discussed with all the stakeholders because each country will decide whether the position is technically sustainable or not but when we send comments we need technical support for each comment not that just that the limit suggested is not the right one and i will suggest so and so because in my country my country should have a supporting data so you always need a technical support or or data supporting the position or comment so each country will decide whether the position is really well supported and in the plenary discussion there will be a discussion whether the support is enough or not thank you the last question steps of five or eight does that mean that they are approved no five it's a step it's a fairly good step i mean only minor things are to be defined and okay so when we send the proposal uh step three five five eight this has to be approved by the commission so when you reach five well okay it's very well uh devolved but it stays in five and we have to go through six and seven so it's not uh are a standard a standard requires additional discussion it's just an official standard when it's five eight so when we skip six and seven or eight but remember that whoever that the one who makes the five is the is the commission so the committees will suggest let's propose this for uh stage five eight or stage eight and until the next session of the commission and until the commission cannot ratify that only then this becomes uh official standard great thank you amanda no further questions just to request uh from a participant if you could please share the address to knexus to the law that for fresh products of free from dirt and an email so that you can contact this person i don't know if somebody would like to ask a question additional comments or anything you would like to take the opportunity i don't see uh virtual hands we will adjourn the session thank you so very much amanda for your support in everything that has to do with codex as a cc lack secretary we're always in contact so this is very valuable and turn your cameras on so that we can have a picture of the session remember today's session and yesterday's sessions were recorded in the two languages and presentations will be shared with you both in english and spanish let's uh turn the cameras on so if you could stop sharing your screen thank you maria are you ready i'd like to thank amanda for the great presentation today and uh these are uh are are very hands on presentations that will help us also let's start with the picture next picture you will have to bear with me there will be like six pictures okay thank you and on behalf of daniella at the f a o like to thank you for joining the session and remember uh this is a series of webinars next session will be december the seventh discussing fundamental aspects and uh next year's sessions will be reported in advance in the web pages and social media so thank you have a good day