Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-01-Speech-4-054"
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"en.20010201.4.4-054"2
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". – Mr President, first of all I wish to thank the rapporteur Mr Olsson for his report and also the committees who gave their opinion on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 96/22 on the prohibition of the use of hormones in stock-farming. The main purpose of the Commission proposal is to increase our level of food safety and to comply with our international obligations deriving from the sanitary and phyto-sanitary agreement of the World Trade Organisation, the so-called SPS Agreement.
I sincerely ask you ladies and gentlemen, to revise your view on this issue, give consumer health a greater priority. Consider the question of consumer health as more important than the interinstitutional wrangling between Parliament and the Commission on the question of whether there should be a full codecision in cases such as this. This is a scientific issue, based on scientific advice: it is an executive decision which will be taken by the Commission and put into an annex in circumstances where there is a full
by Parliament on that issue.
I have said here before when debating this issue that I will not lightly disregard the view of Parliament on any issue where comitology arises. So I sincerely ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to give serious consideration to the rights of consumers, to the question of the proper protection of consumers and also bear in mind we are going to have a food and safety authority in operation hopefully next year. It will have a role to play in rapid reaction. If it identifies an emerging risk, it can advise that there should be an executive response to that risk immediately. Sometimes that will mean a legislative response introduced by the Commission. If that can be done by comitology we will get the kind of speedy response that the consumer requires. But if it can only be done by codecision we will have a delay.
Now allow me to address in detail the amendments which have been proposed in this report as well as the amendment tabled by Mrs Grossetête. I will begin with the amendments the Commission cannot accept. The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 as far as comitology is concerned for the reasons that I have already identified. Nor Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 14 which reject the introduction of the regulatory committee procedure for updating the lists of provisionally and definitively banned substances and which re-introduce the codecision procedure.
Amendment No 1 focuses on a well-founded decision on maintaining the ban. The Commission cannot accept this amendment as it prejudges the outcome of any possible future research. Under Amendment No 2, the Commission would be committed to fund research on the five provisionally banned substances. This is not acceptable. There is no legal obligation under either Community law or the WTO framework for the Commission to finance research. Rather the WTO requires parties to evaluate the risk on the basis of all scientific data. Nevertheless, such studies are not excluded from the European Union’s programmes on food safety.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3 and 11 which insist on the need to introduce effective monitoring systems to protect health. I would like stress that monitoring systems already exist both in the Member States and at Community level. For instance meat imports are already controlled, notably according to the directive on controls and residues, Council Directive 96/23.
Finally, the Commission proposed that the provisions in the directive concerning oestradiol would not apply to animals treated for technical or therapeutical purposes before 1 July. Amendment No 15 by Mrs Grossetête proposes that this provision be linked to the availability of suitable alternatives. The Commission cannot accept this amendment on health grounds given the clear scientific evidence as regards oestradiol. In addition, a recent study indicated that there is no lack of alternatives to oestradiol for therapeutical or zootechnical use in the Community. This study should be made available to Parliament in the near future.
On the other hand the Commission can accept Amendment No 8 as well as in principle the part of Amendment No 10 dealing with scientific data because they introduce useful clarifications to the text.
To conclude, I wish once again to thank Mr Olsson for the excellent report and his support on this important issue. In summary, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 as far as the point of comitology is concerned, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15. On the other hand it can accept Amendment No 8 and in principle the part of Amendment No 10 dealing with scientific data.
This assembly is well aware that the current ban on use of hormones for growth promotion was challenged at the World Trade Organisation and that the final ruling in 1998 criticised the risk assessment on hormones used in food-producing animals presented by the European Community. As you are aware, the Commission initiated a complementary risk assessment on these hormones in the light of the clarifications regarding risk assessment provided by the appellate body of the WTO.
In April 1999, the Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures relating to Public Health issued an opinion on the potential adverse affects to human health arising from hormone residues in bovine meat and meat products. This opinion was reviewed and confirmed in May 2000. The main conclusion was that no acceptable daily intake can be established for any of the six hormones evaluated when they are administered to bovine animals for growth promotion.
As regards to the hormone oestradiol 17-B, the scientific committee found that it has to be considered a complete carcinogen insofar as it has both tumour and tumour initiating affects. For the five other hormones under consideration, the need for further information was identified.
In the light of these conclusions the Commission proposed firstly to ban definitively all the uses of oestradiol in farm animals in the light of the finding that this substance is a complete carcinogen. Secondly, the Commission proposed to maintain provisionally the current prohibition on the five other hormones until more complete scientific information is made available. This measure will be kept under regular review and is thus fully compatible with our international obligations. I am most satisfied that the report supports this approach.
With this proposal the Commission has also provided the necessary legal basis for adaptation of the lists of definitively and provisionally banned substances by the regulatory committee procedure in order to allow for rapid reaction to new evidence and thus further to enhance consumer safety. I regret very strongly that the introduction of the regulatory committee procedure for the adaptation of the lists of substances has not been supported by the report.
Many of you here know my view on this issue. I have discussed with you in bilateral meetings on a number of occasions the question of the use of the comitology procedure and I note that request by the Commission is not being accepted in the amendments that have been put forward. I would ask Parliament to reconsider its view on this issue, because I believe that it is of considerable importance that the question of comitology be seriously addressed in this issue.
I believe that if Parliament insists on the adaptation of the annexes to be done by way of codecision rather than comitology, that Parliament will be guilty of not properly looking after the safety of the consumer health in this issue, an issue that Parliament has discussed in this debate earlier today, both in the BSE context and on this particular issue. How can we possibly justify a delay of a year and a half in the adjustment and adaptation of the annexes in circumstances where a scientific committee may have advised the Commission to add for instance a further hormone to the list of annexes? How can that be justified? Someone said that this is a political issue. I emphatically reject that proposition. It is a scientific issue. That is the very reason why this issue was considered in the WTO. It comes as some concern to me that there is a risk if Parliament adheres to the view that it appears to have on this issue, that we are going to have a situation whereby comitology will not be accepted in this way but rather there will be an adherence to codecision.
I have been through this before. I have had this debate with Parliament and I know what is going to happen later in the day. Members of this House will arrive in here to vote on this issue and they will follow the whips. The vast majority will not know the detail that they are voting on because they are not informed on this particular issue. It is also a major concern to me that so many people today will vote on an issue which is of considerable importance to consumer without knowing that they are putting in place a procedure which would put at risk consumer health by delaying the procedure under which I can, on the basis of clear scientific advice, put something into an annex which will protect consumer health."@en1
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