Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-15-Speech-3-210"
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"en.20001115.9.3-210"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I have listened with great interest to everything that has been said.
The main thing now is not to be accusing people of delaying implementing regulations or establishing responsibilities, but rather, to have a common imperative, that of ensuring food safety. It is a legitimate demand on the part of all European consumers. It is imperative upon government authorities, be they national or European. I believe that we must now try, following your debates, to define the key ways, in terms of both method and means, in order to ensure compliance with this imperative.
The Presidency believes that this method is based on scientific research and consultation. As there is still a lot of uncertainty, we must know what the scientific facts are and what action must be taken. We must also study the feasibility of these measures, and that involves processing MBMs and setting up tests. The speedy implementation of these means comes next, and finally monitoring. You have dealt with all these problems in turn.
As regards the last item, monitoring, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his comments, which demonstrated the Commission’s open-mindedness and showed that it was possible to study all these problems and to set up the European Food Agency quickly. Monitoring can never be anything more than monitoring, however, and if there is still even the slightest possibility that there may have been fraud or embezzlement, or errors of use, this doubt, however tiny it may be, sticks in people’s minds and sometimes brings the entire sector into disrepute.
As far as carrying out generalised testing is concerned, I believe, certainly, that we must increase the number of tests, as indeed you have all called for. Some countries have already gone down this road. We hope that the number of tests carried out on the targeted cattle and sheep populations will increase. I cannot currently see, however, how it will be possible, given the resources available to each of the Member States, to carry out 28 million tests a year, in either technical or financial terms with any degree of effectiveness. What is more, these tests, however good they are, will still leave a margin of doubt since even the best tests, and these have been highlighted, only make it possible to detect the presence of the disease in the last months of incubation, just before it turns into the full-blown disease, and not right at the start. So there are doubts, there are uncertainties, but I believe that our joint text and your debates here in this House have enabled us to make progress.
To this end I listened most attentively to all your speeches, and it seems to me appropriate and crucial that the debate on the safety of our citizens is settled at the European level. It is indeed difficult to have national legislations and a European legislation existing side by side. I believe we should have a single, comprehensive set of laws, which can be applied to meet this demand and thereby avoid distortions of competition, thus making it possible for the single market to operate smoothly.
Rest assured that, when it comes to continuing the work in the Council and my exchanges with the Commission, I will bear all this in mind, in the full knowledge that reaching agreement within the institutions is one of the best ways of dealing with a problem as complex and universal as that of food safety. On 30 November, during the Council meeting, the French Presidency will launch an important debate with a view to providing the first responses to a situation of widespread suspicion, which calls into question the credibility of our institutions in the eyes of our citizens. We are talking about public health, and hence of serious events, which must be treated as such, in a strict and, of course, transparent manner.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, rest assured that, in the twofold undertaking which has fallen to us (in which, I will see to it, the Council will play its part to the full), I am determined to restore consumer confidence and to strengthen the credibility of the European institutions. Each of you here has sought to question or to refer to the survival of the common agricultural policy. Some of you have spoken of the inordinate emphasis placed on productivity and the possibility of going back on the Blair House Agreements, which can only take place in the context of the new round of COM talks.
I have listened to all these proposals – I am not insensitive to them. I shall wait for the results of your debates and I am convinced that we will be able to tackle this safety imperative together, and that we will be able together to find ways and means to guarantee the safety of our fellow citizens."@en1
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