Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-05-Speech-2-278"
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"en.20020205.13.2-278"2
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"Madam President, BSE crystallises the fears and the doubts of both consumers and producers: a considerable fall in the consumption of beef and a more than 20% fall in the price of produce.
Europe, which is largely responsible for this tragic health crisis, must learn the lessons from it, particularly with regard to the failings that have occurred. Instead of giving the Commission and the Veterinary Office greater powers, it would be better to harmonise the measures that need to be taken and then implement them effectively. How, for example, is it possible that the list of specific risk material varies from one State to another? The European Union, the largest consumer of agricultural produce, must impose its requirements for food safety on extra-Community policy. In other words, it must apply to imports similar rules to those that regulate European production.
With regard to research policy, all means must be harnessed: research into the disease, methods of transmission, means of prevention, the updating of tests on living animals, etc.
With regard to waste treatment, how is animal meal stored? How is it going to be processed?
This crisis also has a major economic and social aspect, with the threat to entire swathes of the farming sector. The fall in the number of farms clearly illustrates the professional crisis affecting young farmers. How, indeed, can they contemplate the future with ease if the high-quality products adapted to the new expectations of consumers are not selling?
Other professions lower down the food chain are also affected. This is true of small butchers and specialist butchers, who refuse to give up their right to remove bones in their shops when they only work with healthy carcasses.
Farmers have already made huge efforts to ensure quality, labelling and traceability, for which they are not always compensated. Large-scale distribution continues, in fact, to favour cheap meat, even if this means importing from third countries.
If, as we are told, society has opted for quality, it must stand shoulder to shoulder with farmers in this process. It has become crucial to launch information campaigns to reopen dialogue and to finally restore confidence between consumers and producers. This step is essential to finding a way out of a crisis that is still unfolding."@en1
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