Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-14-Speech-2-341"
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"en.20041214.18.2-341"2
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"Mr President, it is very late now and very few of us are left but nevertheless we are dealing with a very important issue. It is a pity that once again in this Parliament legislation is left until the end of the day.
In a recent opinion poll 77 per cent of British people said that they are concerned about pesticides in food so, as everyone has said, what we are doing here resonates with public opinion. I am very pleased that we have a compromise and that we agree on the main things.
There are two issues which particularly concern me and I am very pleased that we have secured a deal on them. The first is cumulative and synergistic effects: cocktail effects. We were told that there is no methodology at present to measure this effect but this is an effect which research suggests is at the root of our problems. I am very pleased to hear the Commissioner say that he is going to take this research forward and support Parliament in making sure that we get more research into the cumulative effects. That is why I tabled the amendment to recital 5. One problem is that a lot of experts say that these cumulative effects are unfounded, but we have nothing to prove or disprove this. We must get this research, it is very important.
The second issue mentioned by Mr Jørgensen is about the effects on children and the unborn. A lot of research suggests that children and the unborn have in some way been affected by either pesticides or chemicals in our environment. In a recent radio programme about chemicals they did a series of tests on a grandmother, a mother, and a granddaughter. These tests showed that the highest level of chemicals was found not in the grandmother – who had lived through the highest levels of pollution in our streets in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s – but in the granddaughter who was 15 years old. They found in her blood chemicals that had been taken off our shelves many years beforehand. We know that some of these substances come in through pesticides. It is extremely important that we start looking not just at testing on adults but at testing on children and looking at the effects on babies in the womb.
Public confidence in food safety and food standards is very low. In the survey that I referred to earlier, over 50 % of British people said they did not believe that government reassurances about pesticides were accurate. Consequently we need to get it right. Scientific research shows that imported products have more pesticides than products grown within the EU. This is extremely important legislation. I am very grateful to Mr Sturdy, Mr Jørgensen and all those within the Commission and the Council who worked very hard to achieve a compromise that we can all support tomorrow."@en1
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