Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-17-Speech-2-008"
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"en.20021217.1.2-008"2
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". – Mr President, I am grateful to Parliament, and in particular the Temporary Committee on Foot and Mouth Disease, for its hard work in responding to the lessons to be learned from the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic. In particular I wish to thank Mrs Redondo Jiménez for her effective and objective chairing of the committee, the rapporteur, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, for a balanced, straightforward and future-oriented report, and the secretariat of the committee.
The Commission has proposed to the Council a major revision of the animal health and sanitary conditions applying to staging points where animals are rested for welfare reasons whilst in transit. The outbreak of FMD in the Netherlands can be directly linked to such a staging point, in France. Pending the outcome of the technical working groups in the Council, the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health unanimously supported a Commission proposal to extend the strict measures adopted during the FMD crisis until the middle of next year.
Movement controls can only be truly effective if there are reliable identification systems in place. It is clear that the major weakness in this respect is in relation to sheep.
The current provisions and, in particular, their implementation by Member States have proved to be insufficient to enable the veterinary authorities to trace animals. The Commission is making a new proposal for a regulation to require individual identification of sheep, with the option of future electronic identification. I hope the European Parliament will also support this proposal.
I should also mention another major development, the mid-term review of the common agricultural policy. The outcome of the review will have a decisive influence on the future direction of agricultural production in the EU. This in turn cannot be divorced from the health and welfare of animals.
One of the features of the mid-term review is the heavier emphasis on quality rather than quantity. I welcome this trend from a consumer perspective. But it should also assist from the perspective of disease avoidance and control.
Regarding vaccination, the huge numbers of animals slaughtered and destroyed during the outbreak last year had a profound impact on public opinion. We cannot ignore this. In fact, we have fully to take into account the deeply held views of our citizens. Our approach to FMD has to adapt accordingly. Clearly, the rapid slaughter and disposal of infected or susceptible animals must be an important element in our disease control strategy. Emergency vaccination must also play a central role, as appropriate to the circumstances.
There have been deep misunderstandings over the role of vaccination and the Commission's own position on this issue. I do not propose to repeat today what I have already said on this matter. My remarks now are therefore confined to future policy.
The Commission remains of the view that prophylactic vaccination of the entire susceptible livestock population or even particular species is not advisable for sound scientific, technical and economic reasons. The situation in the EU cannot be compared with the endemic FMD situation in South America or elsewhere. FMD is not endemic in the EU, and prophylactic vaccination is not appropriate in the EU. The Commission takes the view that emergency vaccination should, however, be moved to the forefront of the response mechanism in the event of future outbreaks.
The means are now available to detect infection in a vaccinated population and the Commission – now supported by the OIE – actively pursues further improvement of these tests. The forthcoming Commission proposal for a Council directive on FMD will reflect this position on emergency vaccination in line with the recent modifications made to the FMD chapter in the animal health code. But we must not be under any illusions: vaccination is not a miracle cure to solve all our problems. While it must play a much more important future role, it cannot serve as an excuse to weaken our efforts to keep FMD out of the EU, nor can it fully obviate the need for difficult measures in the event of future outbreaks.
I will now turn to contingency planning. There are many lessons to be learned from the events of last year, but they are not necessarily new. The fact remains that success in avoiding future outbreaks – or eradicating them if they do occur – will depend on well prepared contingency plans, the main elements of which I outlined to the committee last September.
My services and I followed your work very closely. We have attended all your meetings, hearings, missions and discussions and have given evidence and support whenever required. I am confident that you will find that the views of Parliament are strongly reflected in the Commission's policy response to foot and mouth disease.
Contingency plans must be regularly reviewed, updated and tested by periodic simulation exercises. The lessons of the outbreak of last year are virtually identical to those of similar outbreaks in the past. The challenge is to act on these lessons. Delayed by the outbreak last year, my services have now completed the inspections of implementation of the approved contingency plans and will continue to monitor the implementation of a whole package of measures adopted at Community level for the prevention and control of major epidemic diseases. In this regard, let me emphasise that I reject the criticism of the Commission at paragraph 54 of your report relating to Commission inspections of contingency plans in Member States.
The Food and Veterinary Office will continue to play a decisive role in this process of review and the Commission will ensure that it can deliver the required services, even in an enlarged Union, within the reserves allocated by the budgetary authority.
I should like to mention the sensitive issue of compensation for disease-related expenditure incurred by Member States. My services have carried out audits in the UK and the other Member States concerned. Payments to the Member States will be in conformity with the results of these audits. Moreover, the European Court of Auditors is preparing a separate report on the financial aspects of the outbreak.
I have taken note of your request for harmonisation of the different compensation schemes applied in Member States. I should recall, however, that the Commission is bound to act on the basis of Council Decision 90/424. The Commission has now finalised the terms of reference for an external review of the current compensation schemes and the elaboration of possible solutions for the future. But we should not be under any illusion that veterinary fund compensation should be made available to all indirectly affected members of the rural community.
To conclude, may I praise once again the valuable role played by your committee as regards its contribution to the Commission's approach to FMD. Much work remains to be done, and the Commission's proposal for a new directive on FMD will reach Parliament very soon. I trust that the assessment of our proposal by Parliament will benefit from the expertise acquired during the work of the temporary committee.
I will now turn to the key conclusions and recommendations in your report. First, the international dimension of Community policy on FMD; secondly, the single market issues that arise and, thirdly, control measures.
On the international dimension, I note the serious concern that poor controls on imports from third countries may have led to last year's outbreak and the calls for these controls to be strengthened. I wish to make a very clear distinction between illegal introduction and legal imports. Illegal actions are obviously, by their nature, very difficult to eliminate. The Commission has, however, made proposals within the framework of the hygiene package to withdraw exemptions from the strict animal health conditions and control procedures for imports. We have also adopted a decision to introduce tougher rules on the personal import of meat and milk products by travellers arriving in the EU from the majority of third countries. Our awareness campaign in relation to this measure will begin on 1 January 2003.
As for control on legal imports, the evidence indicates that Community import conditions and controls at external borders have been effective. Prior to last year's outbreak, the EU was broadly FMD-free for almost a decade. During that time hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fresh-meat products were safely imported. These imports included large quantities from disease-free regions in South America, where FMD is endemic and vaccination is practised. The outbreak last year could not have originated in South America as the O1 Pan-Asia strain of the virus is unknown in that continent.
Calls for a ban on such imports must be viewed in this light, yet such calls continue to be made. I find it difficult not to conclude that protectionist interests are involved here and may lie behind these demands.
Certainly, we must continue to insist on strict controls. We must equally reject pressures to turn them into thinly – or not so thinly – disguised barriers to trade. We must continue to pursue the eradication of FMD on an international level. To this end, we collaborate closely with international organisations, such as the FAO and the OIE, and will continue to do so.
I was deeply concerned to read some of the proposed modifications to the report, which suggested measures that would dismantle the European single market. I therefore congratulate the committee on rejecting most of these suggestions and on its pro-single-market stance.
As you are aware, most of our animal health legislation is in the form of directives. This approach provides sufficient flexibility for Member States to implement harmonised measures. However, shortcomings in implementation have certainly contributed to the magnitude of the 2001 FMD epidemic. The Commission has devoted much energy towards improving legislation where necessary and to reinforcing official controls in the Community. One of the key features of the UK epidemic was the huge number of frequently unrecorded movements of animals. The Commission has submitted a proposal to reinforce controls on the movement of animals. This proposal in particular introduced for sheep – as regards breeding and production – a mandatory residence of 30 days prior to despatch to another Member State. It also limits the number of assembly operations in assembly centres, approved under more stringent animal health requirements. This has attracted the support of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and of Parliament."@en1
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