Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-21-Speech-3-473"
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"en.20080521.31.3-473"2
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"Mr President, I too wish to congratulate our rapporteur. I was pleased to support this report in committee and I am pleased to support it now, along with my group. I also welcome what the Commissioner has said, and am pleased she is in the Chamber this evening as there is a great deal of common ground between the Commission and Parliament on animal health issues. I look forward to working with her and her services in the months ahead, as this dossier moves forward.
I am pleased the Commissioner highlighted why it is we need a common EU animal health strategy. It is quite clear that, in a globalised world, bluetongue does not respect borders or our policies or the differences between countries within the European Union, or indeed the EU’s external borders. Avian flu and many other diseases can travel around the planet very, very quickly in a globalised world. We need to act together in order to deal with them and work out a strategy for remedying them.
We are exporting our animals – and perhaps their health problems too – and it is clear that we are all in this together. I look forward to the rolling-out of the health action plan, which the Commissioner said will be coming in the next few weeks. I would refer the House in particular to paragraph 46 of Parliament’s report, which acknowledges that the EU is already a beacon of best practice for the world as regards animal welfare and refers in particular to the WTO negotiations. I would urge the Commissioner to talk with Commissioner Mandelson to ensure that the WTO negotiations do not water down or compromise the EU’s standards, particularly in relation to what are, frankly, substandard imports into the European Union. We had many misadventures in the committee over the issue of Brazilian beef imports, for which I am not sure that the system worked as well as it could have done. I hope we will not be replicating that situation with the US poultry issue.
One other animal welfare issue I wish to raise is that of sheep tagging. We are supportive of the broad thrust of this measure, but frankly believe that the Commission is going in the wrong direction and is not acting in a proportionate manner to what is actually needed on the ground in order to ensure everything that it requires. This is particularly true in the case of the British Isles, where Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales already have a system that works pretty well and effectively protects Europe’s animals and their welfare. I would be grateful for the Commissioner’s thoughts on that, but otherwise broadly support this report and her efforts."@en1
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