Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-14-Speech-2-338"
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"en.20041214.18.2-338"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what we are aiming at includes less bureaucracy and greater simplicity; this single Regulation is meant to replace four basic directives on pesticide residues. This is not just about food safety and health, but also about equal opportunities in competing in the internal market and – let us not forget – on the global market. Producers and processors must operate under identical conditions, and all consumers are entitled to safe food.
The European Food Safety Authority has great responsibility where risk management is concerned. It is no use whatever to consumers to get, week in and week out, one new warning after another, sometimes petering out into such generalisations as the statement that, for example, apples from a particular Member State are exceeding the maximum permitted levels, when such announcements are helpful only if they include the name of the company whose products contain excessive residues of pesticides. We are setting very high standards right across the EU, particularly where health is concerned, and quite rightly too.
Equally, though, we have to look more closely at imports into the European Union. There is no room for double standards here, and what that means – as I see it – is tighter controls on imported goods. We cannot intervene in their production processes in the way we can with the food produced here, and that makes it all the more important that the end market be checked and monitored. I am glad that the committee was able to come up with a compromise on the definition of ‘good agricultural practice’. Europe’s farmers produce in accordance with the most stringent legal requirements, as is best known in the case of the rules on cross-compliance. Those who farm in accordance with the law must also be certain that their products pose no health hazard.
I am grateful to Mr Sturdy for the work he has done over many months, and for the good compromise that we have been able to reach."@en1
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