Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-16-Speech-1-100"
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"en.20021216.8.1-100"2
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"Mr President, I rather liked the introduction from the Commissioner on this. I thought he got it right, with one exception: he was misreading paragraph 3. It is not as negative as he suggests. The original text from Mrs Breyer, which welcomes the Commission's suggestion that the current list be regarded, has now become 'notes the Commission's suggestion that the current list could be regarded'. That has been changed quite significantly. You need to look at all the changes that took place in committee. After all, food has been treated with ionising radiation for some 50 years, as the rapporteur rightly said. In my country, the UK, products include vegetables, fruit, cereals, poultry, fish, shellfish – not too many frogs’ legs! All that range, to a certain degree, is given this treatment. Different countries have different lists. The common ground between us is that it must not pose a health hazard, is of benefit to consumers and is labelled. If there is a need and if it is safe, then why not? That is the committee's broad view.
Well, it is safe. The WHO says so. The EU Scientific Committee on Food says so, and it therefore is an element of consumer protection in itself. There is a need, for instance, in hospitals, to protect the food of some very vulnerable patients from dangerous bacteria. It can protect food from contamination. What it cannot do is to reverse contamination or putrefaction in food.
The Commission came forward with a perfectly sensible communication – a discussion paper – with its options of the current EU list, plus shrimps and frogs’ legs, of the current wider Member States' list, or of the current EU list alone. I suspect the answer is somewhere around the first and second options, but we are not at this stage dealing with the legislative proposal. The Commission is in listening mode. We needed cool, calm reflection on this. That is a thousand miles from the threat of Armageddon that we saw in the original report, with spectres of dangers, such as the long journeys that are actually of benefit to the developing countries in exporting their goods. The picture of the radioactive sources posing safety risks and risks to security through the acquisition of radioactive materials by terrorists seeking to make dirty bombs has been banished from the committee's view. We are looking for something a little more measured.
The report in its original form was more like the description of the Merovingian dynasty as despotism tempered by assassination. The reality is that we have a process that is safe if used properly. It can bring benefits and it should be considered carefully with proper risk assessment and risk management, but without scaremongering.
The amendments that Mrs Grossetête and I proposed and the committee supported bring this report back to where the Commission might prefer it to be."@en1
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