Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-12-Speech-2-036"
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"en.20010612.3.2-036"2
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"Mr President, while complimenting the rapporteur on his work I venture to raise some doubt about the approach whereby, whenever a problem turns up, the response is to create an agency, a body appointed to deal with it or resolve it. Unfortunately, that is the golden rule for the creation and proliferation of bureaucracies. Naturally, we hope it will not be the case of this Food Safety Authority, but every appropriate measure must be taken and great care is needed, because that is precisely the mechanism usually operating inside the European Union. As regards food safety, we know there are enormous political problems inside the Union, because we have seen them with our own eyes, particularly during the food crisis caused by mad cow disease, but not only then. These are political problems that call for political responses about possibilities of intervention and the relationship of powers between the Union and the Member States, and these political responses cannot be discharged simply by creating an authority appointed to provide them.
That said, let us at least make sure the decision to be taken allows the Authority to operate properly, and for it to operate properly – as others have already said – I believe its purpose must be very precise: it must be clearly defined as food safety. It seems to me less than prudent – and here I am referring to the speeches of some of my fellow Members – to start thinking about extending the purpose and scope of the Authority to include environmental issues and matters relating to traditional foods. These are issues to be dealt with by the market and the Member States. I am of the opinion that this Authority should first and foremost concern itself with issues of food safety and scientific opinions, not, as the text advocates, to avoid contrasting scientific opinions, but indeed, on the contrary, to ensure that all the different scientific opinions see the light of day and perhaps even to allow the democratic assemblies to consider, compare and debate the solutions proposed by science.
It would therefore be appropriate to consolidate Parliament’s influence and involvement, from membership of the board of directors to the actual decisions relating to the Authority, both now and indeed later, when the Authority is actually in place.
I want to comment now on an amendment contained in the report, which states that: ‘in order to encourage respect for EU law, it should only be located in a country within the top half of Member States in terms of the fewest cases outstanding in the ECJ for alleged breaches of EU law’. I think that is a real blunder, and a basic error in the interpretation of the Treaties as well. There are rules laid down for imposing sanctions and monitoring respect for European Union legislation in the Member States, and it would really be an improper use of the Treaties and European legislation to use the location of agency offices as merchandise to be traded between one country and another, with more going to ‘good’ countries and less to ‘bad’ countries with a large number of cases pending before the Court of Justice. The location of the Authority must be based on criteria relating to its activity – that is, the location should be the expression of an agricultural and food culture rooted in that territory – and to its scientific jurisdiction, which relates to foods and food products. In general, locating agencies as prizes to be given to this or that Member State is a dangerous mechanism which binds the agency to the Member State, diminishes its independence and, above all, is a perverted use of European legislation."@en1
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