Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-14-Speech-2-077"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2000-03-14"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Cocoa and chocolate products (continuation)2
dcterms:Language	"sv"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20000314.6.2-077"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2000-03-14-Speech-2-0782
lpv:speaker	lp:Per-Arne Arvidsson2
lpv:spokenAs	member; Delegation to the EU-Czech Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee (1999-10-06--2002-01-14)3 member; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (1999-07-21--2002-01-14)3 member; EPP-ED (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 substitute; Delegation to the European Economic Area Joint Parliamentary Committee (EEA) (1999-10-08--2002-01-14)3 unknown; Moderata samlingspartiet (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 substitute; Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport (1999-07-21--2002-01-14)3
lpv:translated text	"Mr President, we are in no position, here in the European Parliament, to state that one type of chocolate is better or worse than another. Nor can we say that one kind tastes better and another worse. Rather, we shall leave it to the individual consumer to judge which kind tastes best and is of the highest quality. Consumer choice is the basic principle of the market economy and, as politicians, we should not be instrumental in running a kind of nanny State. Malta’s former prime minister, Dom Mintoff, attempted during the 1970s to reduce chocolate imports and to alter the way in which chocolate was consumed by tourists and by his own people. With Chinese help, a chocolate factory was built on the island, but consumers did not like the locally produced chocolate and chocolate consumption fell. If we direct developments in such a way as to create a situation in which there is only the one tradition of chocolate manufacture within the EU, cocoa-producing countries will be in danger of losing out since there would be a great risk of total chocolate consumption within the EU appreciably decreasing. Let us not, therefore, make the same mistake as Dom Mintoff. The proposal that information about the contents of certain forms of chocolate should be provided on the front of the packaging is discriminatory and completely unjustified. It would be more like the kind of warning you find on cigarette packets. The chocolate war has been raging within the EU for 25 years. It has made ourselves as politicians and the EU as an institution look faintly ridiculous. In the future EU, too, and within a society characterised by diversity, there must be room for two traditions of chocolate manufacture. We now have the opportunity to bring the 25 year-old European chocolate war to an honourable end for all the parties concerned. We ought therefore to adhere precisely to the common position."@en1

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