The European Food Safety Authority — EFSA — is the consultative body, funded by the European Union, that advises policymakers on food safety. Based in Parma, it does not make law or enforce it; it provides the independent scientific risk assessments on which EU food law rests — evaluating additives, pesticides, GMOs, health claims, and contaminants, and responding to food scares with rapid opinions. Its panels of experts publish reasoned, public assessments, and its data-gathering coordinates monitoring across member states. The separation of risk assessment (EFSA) from risk management (the Commission and member states) is the EU system’s defining architecture, designed after the BSE crisis to keep science independent of politics. Industry and campaigners both lobby its conclusions because they know: in Brussels, EFSA’s opinion is where food-safety decisions begin.