Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-17-Speech-1-061-000"
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"en.20110117.13.1-061-000"2
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"Madam President, as you are well aware, the New Year started with a serious incident of dioxin contamination of animal feed in Germany. The Commission services have been monitoring developments closely and in full cooperation with the competent German authorities.
I personally contacted the German Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Ilse Aigner, on 6 January, and we exchanged views on what needs to be done to avoid similar contamination and incidents in the future. Today, I again contacted the German Minister, as I was concerned by the recent news from last weekend that a feed manufacturer did not provide a full list of farms which received potentially contaminated feed, and provided incorrect information as regards the use of contaminated feed fat in compound feed, resulting in an additional blocking of several hundred farms.
This concerns a very serious infringement of EU food safety provisions. Let me say it clearly: the German authorities are fully engaged in dealing with this contamination and are doing their best to deal with it urgently and decisively.
I am informed that they are making available additional capacity for testing so that this is done and finished in the shortest possible time. However, it is important that the wider implications for the approach towards the safety of animal feed at EU level are also urgently addressed. For this reason, a team from the Food and Veterinary Office will visit Germany next week to assist the German authorities and to inform our overall knowledge and understanding of how this contamination happened and how it can be avoided in the future. The German authorities are informed and have agreed to this visit. I know that we can count on the full cooperation of our German colleagues.
This incident will also be discussed during the Agricultural Council which will take place in Brussels next Monday, 24 January. As I have already mentioned, we are reflecting on measures including legislative ones.
The incident has highlighted the necessity to ensure the effectiveness of national control systems which underpin the confidence of all EU Member States and third countries in our food and feed safety measures. In order to address this issue, I am exploring the possibility of establishing a strict segregation of the production of fats and oils intended for feed and food purposes from the production of fats and oils for technical uses, and I am considering the possibility of legal requirements on reinforced controls on dioxins at different stages of the feed chains.
I am confident that these measures, when endorsed and adopted, will bring the necessary improvements to our already solid food and feed safety systems.
I have already started considering possible measures which will ensure that our high-level food and feed safety system will become even more efficient. But let me start with the facts of the incident first: the incident came to light when a compound feed manufacturer notified the German competent authorities on 22 December 2010 after having received the analytical result from a laboratory that a sample was found to be non-compliant with EU legislation after self-controlled tests.
Between the middle of November and middle of December of last year, a biodiesel manufacturer delivered seven consignments of fatty acids intended for technical purposes to a feed fat manufacturer who also produces fats for technical use. This latter company was, at the same time, a registered feed fat manufacturer; apparently, blending of feed grade fat and technical fat took place. Four of these consignments delivered in the second half of November were later found to be contaminated with dioxins. The other three delivered to feed mills in the first half of December 2010 were not contaminated.
However, until this was verified and for purely precautionary reasons, all consignments were regarded and treated as potentially contaminated. A total of almost 2 300 tonnes of potentially contaminated feed fat was delivered to 25 feed manufacturers in Germany. No deliveries of feed fat were made outside of Germany.
Between 100 000 and 200 000 tonnes of feed containing 2% to 10% of the potentially contaminated fat were delivered to about 4 800 farms in Germany. As a strictly precautionary measure, all farms were blocked; their commercial activities suspended; there were laying hen, fattening poultry, goose, pig, dairy cattle, bovine and rabbit farms. Some deliveries of potentially contaminated feed for breeding hens were also made to France and Denmark.
No food of animal origin from the blocked farms can be placed on the market until the farms are unblocked. This can only happen after it is ensured through analytical results and investigations that the farms are not contaminated at levels above those provided by the EU law. Currently, of these 4 800 farms that were originally blocked, 939 farms – mostly poultry and pig establishments – remain blocked. It appears that no contaminated food was traded or exported from Germany since the incident was notified, with a few exceptions.
In the end, analytical results showed that the products were compliant with EU legislation. This is an example of the effectiveness of the EU’s traceability system and we will continue to be vigilant in this respect.
The fortunate element of this incident is that the observed levels of dioxin in food where EU limits were exceeded have not been very high, which means that no immediate health risk for the consumer is expected as a result of the consumption, if any, of the contaminated products during a short period of time.
What has the Commission done to help manage the incident? My services have been in constant contact with the German authorities and they immediately disseminated all information to Member States through the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed. They have also been in touch with the competent authorities in third countries, providing a clear picture of the incident to our trade partners. Moreover, Commission officials met with stakeholders in the fats and oils industries to explore ways of further strengthening the monitoring of dioxin in feed."@en1
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