Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-11-Speech-1-204"
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"en.20061211.19.1-204"2
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".
Mr President, the rapporteur may well be absent, but I would still like to extend warm thanks to him, because I have the impression that, even though he has been a Member of this House for years, he has not lost any of the initial enthusiasm he displayed in the past. Looking back, the European Union has been faced with a number of unparalleled cattle feed scandals that have had a profound impact on policy. It is therefore self-evident that we cannot exercise enough care in the cattle feed sector, and there is every reason to put sound checks in place.
The big question is whether we will resolve this if we indicate exact percentages and quantities on the label, and so this method is probably ineffective, as the content changes by the day, and I know few farmers who study every label before they decide which cattle feed to buy. What matters to an average farmer, an average cattle farmer, is the energy content of the feed, the protein content and the company’s reputation. What is the role of the government in all of this? Should the government always need to have a certain insight into what a certain manufacturer does, and how can this be monitored?
I therefore think it important that every cattle feed manufacturer in Europe should have the information available at any time in order to be able to present it to anyone who is interested, which does not mean to say that all company secrets should all of a sudden be out in the open. Quite the reverse; I doubt whether we can make this demand. There are certain experiences that are beneficial to certain factories and these can be sustained, but I think that the Commission must be able to say that as a government body or national body, it must always be able to check the cattle feed composition and the possible impact this feed has on public health.
One of the interesting aspects of the Court of Justice’s judgment was that the directive’s criteria, as we know them, were not at all in proportion with the directive key objective, namely better public health. My burning question is therefore: the current Commission is very much in favour of less legislation, but how can this be married with the Commission’s past requirements – and perhaps even today’s if I interpret the proposal correctly – involving precise percentages? I cannot see how this can be done. Less regulation and at the same time an indication of exact percentages? Another big area of concern for me is the fact that in seven of the Member States, the national judicial authorities have already declared the directive to be inadmissible. I am therefore tempted to think that the entire directive in its current form is a legal ogre; I therefore welcome the Commission proposal to table a fresh proposal at the earliest opportunity."@en1
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