Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-17-Speech-2-043"
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"en.20021217.1.2-043"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, the message from this morning's debate was that ‘prevention is better than cure’. No to prophylactic vaccination; yes to ring-vaccination. The recurrent refrain was that, in future, all-round improvements to systems will be required as a matter of necessity.
In terms of the number of animals culled, the course taken by foot and mouth disease in the European Union in 2001 made it, no doubt, the most serious outbreak ever. The Temporary Committee on Foot and Mouth Disease worked hard, and very efficiently, over the course of several months, and those involved were complimented and thanked this morning.
It is important that any future changes in policy should take as their starting point an analysis of how the disease has been handled up to now. European producers and consumers attach equal importance to the transposition of Community legislation, Community finance and, in particular, to the drafting of proposals for the prevention and control of diseases in agriculture.
What I will now say, I say as one who comes from the region bordering on the Netherlands, with a very high number of granivores. We must, yet again, draw attention to the need for better networking when cooperating on an acute case of the disease. Political requirements are important, Commissioner, but real work on the ground, on farms, done by veterinary surgeons and the inspection authorities, using the necessary crisis plans and an emergency room, is an absolute necessity if decisions are to be taken quickly and efficiently.
Perhaps I may conclude by giving the example of my constituency, where many institutions have caused a great stir among farmers by participating in a large-scale test of how they would manage a foot and mouth crisis. You have to think of it as a practice exercise for firefighters, a call-out without a fire. What was called for was the most rapid reaction in case X, and this cross-border cooperation between the Netherlands and Germany achieved a really most impressive result.
Let us all hope that this exercise never has to be done for real. We are backing the Commission's proposals. We look forward with eager anticipation, hoping that we will, in future, have a policy on epidemics that will gain greater acceptance among farmers and consumers than has been the case in the past."@en1
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