The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) launched a comprehensive review of its guidance documentation system in April 2026, introducing a new catalogue to improve access, understanding and use of guidance documents by scientists, partners and stakeholders.This initiative aims to make risk assessment processes more efficient and transparent , in line with the strategy of standardizing and facilitating authorization requests.
Main novelties of the EFSA System (2026)
- New Guidance Document Catalogue : A single centralised portal allows you to search and access all EFSA guidance documents, including those that are current, being discontinued or obsolete.
- New Classification : Documents are now organized into five categories defined by purpose, content, applicability (cross-sector or sectoral), degree of obligatory nature, and who adopts them.
- EU Food Safety Library Guidance : A further innovation is the creation of an EU library containing guidance documents produced by national competent organisations and EU risk assessors, brought together by EFSA's Advisory Forums and Focal Points.
- Process Standardization : The development of new guidelines will follow a standardized process to improve traceability and predictability for users .
Structure of the EFSA Guidelines
EFSA's guidance documents define the principles, criteria and methodologies for scientific assessments and are mainly divided into:- Cross-cutting Guidelines : adopted by the Scientific Committee, they apply to most scientific areas (e.g. uncertainty analysis, statistical reporting).
- Sectoral Guidelines : adopted by EFSA scientific expert groups (Panels) or Units, specific to certain sectors (e.g. novel foods, additives, pesticides).
Objectives and Benefits
- Greater transparency : harmonisation of procedures across all EFSA expert panels.
- Ease of access : Simplified search in one place.
- Predictability : Helps applicants submit more robust dossiers by reducing requests for clarification or additional data.
- Continuously updated : the catalog reflects the evolution of scientific methodologies, such as the recent guidelines on food additives (published on January 20, 2026). (Source: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/ )