Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-05-Speech-3-211"
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"en.20000705.6.3-211"2
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"Mr President, so much has gone wrong on the phthalates issue that it is difficult to know where to start. The Commission's temporary bans have no legal basis. The Commission may introduce an emergency ban where there is a clear and immediate danger, but no such danger exists with phthalates.
These materials have been in widespread use around the world for forty years, yet there is no evidence of any kind that any damage has ever been done to anyone. There was one test on rats in which massive quantities of phthalates appeared to cause problems, but researchers have been unable to replicate this test. We are dealing here with little more than media hysteria and ignorance. More people have died in Teddy Kennedy's car than have died of phthalates!
Compare and contrast our position on phthalates with our position on tobacco. Phthalates have never done any harm to anyone, yet we are banning them. Tobacco, we are told, kills half a million people each year in the European Union but do we ban it? No, we do not. We subsidise it with millions of euros. If we ban existing products, alternative products may be even more dangerous. As Mrs García-Orcoyen has pointed out, this has already happened, for example, with breast implants, where alternatives to silicon have proved to be more dangerous than the implants they replaced.
In trying to defend an untenable position the Commission has shamelessly sought to gag its own scientific advisers. It has bowdlerised their reports, it has pressured them into changing their positions. Honesty and transparency have been sacrificed to expedience. I and other colleagues wrote to Commission President Prodi on this point two months ago. I understand that his reply has been held for some time ‘awaiting signature’, presumably to ensure we should not see it before today's debate. Neither the temporary bans nor the permanent ban are justified by the evidence. Migration tests for phthalates are currently under development and will probably be available within months. We should wait until these tests are available and then, if we must, impose migration limits.
We hear far too much about the precautionary principle. To be meaningful the precautionary principle should be invoked only when there is a clear and demonstrable risk. If we continue to invoke it when there is no prime facie risk at all, we make both the precautionary principle and ourselves look ridiculous."@en1
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