Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-30-Speech-2-020"
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".
Mr President, Commission representatives, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by personally thanking the representatives of the Commission and Council for their excellent cooperation over the last two years. I had the opportunity to work on these dossiers with both the Italian and the Irish Presidencies, to which I am grateful for an outstanding and comradely piece of cooperation.
Another thing required of the competent authority is the integration of controls. It is no longer enough to concentrate on the enforcement of statutory provisions. The involvement of businesses in food safety matters also requires greater flexibility on the competent authority’s part. The business operator should see himself as a partner and be seen as one. That cannot be legislated for by statute, but the foundations for greater food safety through cooperation have been laid.
One point was a matter of dispute for a long time: the involvement of slaughterhouse staff in official controls. I am aware – and I am speaking here as a parliamentary rapporteur – that the compromise that has been reached may not meet with this House’s approval. There are a number of reasons for this. Some say, for example, that this rule will not help us in what we have always been trying to do, that is, to improve food safety indeed, that it will have quite the opposite effect. The regulation on official controls of feed and foodstuffs requires those carrying out official controls to act independently. The establishment’s staff are dependent on the head of the establishment. Staff training restricts the veterinarian and therefore hampers his ability to make controls. There remains the question of costs. Does the operator really save inspection costs? I do not believe so. All the calculations show the opposite.
I think, gentlemen of the Council, that we should agree here to come back to this and try to clarify it in perhaps two or three years’ time. Since this regulation brings much that is new to the Member States and will require a lot of adjustment by all concerned, we should first apply it for two or three years and then concentrate on this question again. I think we should use the existing outcome and adopt these regulations in this legislative period without further discussion. They are an important foundation for food safety.
As the Commissioner has now arrived, I would like to repeat what I said at the beginning: my sincere thanks to you and your colleagues for your extraordinarily close cooperation in working on the texts of these regulations. I think it is a good piece of work and we will come much closer to our objective of improving food safety in Europe.
What is it all about? The four regulations we have before us are an important part of the measures to improve food safety in the European Union. They were drawn up with the aim of replacing 17 directives and making the law more coherent and more science- and risk-based. Do the texts produced by the Commission, Council and Parliament meet those requirements? I believe they do. I believe we have created an excellent legal base. The effects may be described as follows:
Firstly, there is greater legal certainty. The proposals build on tried and tested practices with additional measures for greater food safety, but the crucial thing is that they are a new legislative concept. The choice of a regulation, which means that the same text applies everywhere in the European Union, was a decisive step for greater coherency and less bureaucracy. That the Commission, Council and Parliament have agreed to expand the mandatory parts of all requirements is very much to be welcomed. This will enable firms involved to act with greater legal certainty. When requirements are constantly changing, that is of immense importance.
Parliament’s efforts to limit the scope for amending the annexes in the comitology procedure must also be seen as part of this approach for stability and legal certainty. We have found a more or less acceptable arrangement. I can, however, also assure you that we shall be watching the use of comitology for amending the annexes very critically. Legal certainty must be the main concern. We do of course need flexibility as well to be able to respond to new dangers and new situations. I believe we have that, too.
The second principle behind the new food safety rules is in the interests of all concerned. The introduction of the ‘from farm to table’ principle, self-inspection by businesses with the use of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) principle and of guides, and the greater attention paid to scientific findings are the essence of the new approach. Everyone concerned is brought into the system. However, the new system also takes account of the type of production process and the guarantees offered by the food business operator. That is why the new approach is also marked by greater flexibility. The fact that exemptions and variations are possible is not inconsistent with the aim of improving food safety. They are, however, only permitted for traditional production methods in difficult remote areas, that is, in places where remoteness of location or the mountainous nature of the region brings its own problems, and of course where local markets are supplied. The great variety of means of production in the European Union can be taken into account. I believe that making this dependent on the competent authority’s risk assessment was a wise approach. I will mention only in passing that the Council and Commission have slightly watered down the ‘from farm to table’ principle in as much as the HACCP procedure will not be mandatory in primary production. I believe we have managed to find a wise solution here, too, in leaving the arrangements to the Member States.
In accordance with this ‘low requirements for low risk’ approach, however, we should give small businesses the assurance that evidence of the results of the HACCP principle can be provided in a form acceptable to the firm. I am referring here to recital 15 of Common Position No 1 on the food hygiene regulation, according to which good hygienic practices can replace monitoring of critical control points. I consider this arrangement especially suitable for artisanal small businesses.
The official veterinarian is central to the proposed system of official supervision of meat production.
He performs audits and inspections so that the requirements of the relevant provisions can be observed by all concerned. The official veterinarian must have the statutory means to enforce the requirements. This also means that the legal texts must lay down clear criteria for his decisions. That is why it is important that Parliament has included the basic tasks of official controls in Article 3.
The veterinarian and official specialised assistants must also show evidence of a high level of expertise. I believe this is right. In some Member States, however – and that is already evident – this will require a change to veterinary training. The authorities in the Member States should also act quickly to ensure that enough personnel are available to be able to comply with the wide-ranging regulations. So far as I am aware, only a few countries currently have the staff to perform such tasks as the rule we have adopted about the conditional approval of establishments. Let me make this clear: with their current staffing levels the authorities will not be able to check three times in six months that an establishment meets the approval requirements."@en1
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