Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-31-Speech-3-191"
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"en.20070131.22.3-191"2
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"Mr President, I would like to start by expressing my thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Ries, whose report I found balanced from the very outset and to be one that I can, in principle, endorse.
I think I am in a position to judge this, having spent three years examining the problem of increasing obesity among Europeans, particularly children, in connection with the famous – or notorious – issue of nutritional and health statements on food, which the Commissioner will not have forgotten.
I see it as particularly important that an holistic approach be taken to the problem, for it is one that has to do with society as a whole; it is not an individual food or the enticing advertising for it that is causing people to be fatter and fatter and hence more and more prone to illnesses. We know that the modern lifestyle is the real problem; we do not get about enough!
Is this, though, a problem that can be resolved by legislation? Generally speaking, I still have my misgivings about bans on advertising, for these simply suggest that it is the product that is bad and to be blamed for people’s suffering. The ordinary public see that as
on the part of the State, the sort of thing that puts people off Europe and leads them to reject it.
Whatever became of individuals’ personal responsibility? Have they suddenly become something less than adult? What about parents’ responsibility for their children? That is something we should be insisting on! But Europeans, of course, need better education, comprehensible labelling of food, and information about a healthy lifestyle in order to be able to exercise that responsibility for themselves; after all, parents do want a good and healthy future for their children.
Let us not, while we on this subject, forget the European principle of subsidiarity. We cannot and must not be more than brokers of ideas between the Member States. It is no part of our function to interfere in such things as schools, which are organised on national – or, as in Germany, on regional – lines. It is a fundamental principle that coercion by force of law is misguided, that pressure produces resistance. By our policies, we must persuade people and carry them with us; that is the only way we will get anywhere."@en1
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