Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-16-Speech-2-340"
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"en.20060516.38.2-340"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, over the past decade, the European Parliament has played a decisive role in the political response to BSE, which, although this disease emerged in the United Kingdom as long ago as the 1980s, was given another dimension when the British Health Secretary stated in the Parliament at Westminster that there is a probable link between BSE and a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease.
Parliament was quick to give its political response in the shape of an inquiry committee under the leadership of Mrs Roth-Behrendt, which carried out excellent research into the state of affairs and the Commission’s and Member States’ shortcomings. This was followed by a conditional vote of no-confidence and one of the key results was that food safety was taken away from DG Agriculture and became an area of policy that falls within the codecision procedure.
Since the adoption of BSE legislation in 2001 and 2002 and the detailed regulations about animal by-products, quite a few controversial measures have also been approved under the comitology procedure. Since June 2001, BSE legislation has had no fewer than 19 updates on comitology decisions, and so vigilance on the part of this House must be the order of the day.
Let me give you just two examples. The Commission’s proposal to reintroduce fishmeal as a feed to ruminants was only withdrawn following strong protests in this House. The second example is about feed provisions described in Annex 4 to the Act which were changed by comitology decisions, without Parliament’s involvement, from detailed descriptions taking up half a page to no fewer than 9 pages of detailed provisions and exceptions.
The comitology procedure remains a huge problem, therefore, and one that we failed to resolve in this negotiation round with the Council. We are pleased though, that, from now on, consideration must be given to a scientific risk analysis in respect of the impact on man and animal, and this is certainly a good thing. The agreement reached with the Council at first reading, which is reflected in Amendments 41 to 56, receives our group’s unqualified support. The key areas in this respect remain the ban on all animal proteins as a feed for ruminants, the stipulation that fishmeal can only be fed to young ruminant species following scientific assessment and sufficiently strict control measures, as well as regulations about separator meat, which should finally be laid down.
It is particularly regrettable that the rapporteur, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, cannot be present for this debate. I wish her much strength, a speedy recovery and I look forward to her resuming her role here in this House very soon."@en1
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