Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-05-Speech-4-006"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2002-09-05"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Recent serious problems concerning food safety in the EU2
dcterms:Language	"en"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20020905.1.4-006"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2002-09-05-Speech-4-0072
lpv:speaker	lp:John Bowis2
lpv:spoken text	"Mr President, food safety has been high on our parliamentary menu for the past three years. We have had scares and scandals in Europe on olive oil, contaminated wine, mineral water, listeria, salmonella, E. coli, BSE, dioxins, sludge and slurry. They all concerned our constituents and exercised our legislative minds. Now, once again, there is a problem with hormones. We discussed and debated the Food Safety White Paper and went on to pass legislation on food and feed and on the establishment of the European Food Safety Authority. Now, our media have been full of new food scandals. 50 000 Dutch pigs condemned to be slaughtered because they were contaminated by illegal feedstuffs – illegal because of contamination by MPA hormones in feed additives. The cost to the Netherlands alone is immense, tens of millions of euros. The problem probably came, as we heard, from waste water from an American-owned pharmaceutical company in Ireland, sent by an Irish waste disposal firm to a Belgian reprocessing plant that is now bankrupt. That firm supplied glucose syrup or treacle to Dutch feed manufacturers. All 4 000 pigs were then exported from the Netherlands to Belgium. The banned hormone has been found in pigfeed in Germany. 300 German farms were banned from selling milk or animals. But pork was sold, was processed and has been eaten by humans and of course MPA in humans can cause infertility. Some of the syrup, too, ended up with soft drink manufacturers. Some of the feed ended up in Denmark, Spain, France and possibly Luxembourg and Britain. One of the messages the Commissioner has highlighted is that we need coordination, not only between governments but between the directorates of the Commission. I welcome what he said about talking to Mrs Wallström. Commissioner, what is the point of our passing laws if they are not enforced? Where were the checks and the monitoring? What, incidentally, are the Commission's new proposals on controls? Was this negligence or was it a criminal attempt to increase the weight of pigs by illegal means? How often is a blind eye turned to wrongdoing? A banned carcinogenic herbicide was found in grain fed to organic chickens in Germany in June. Yet exports of organic chicken or eggs from Germany were not banned. I have faith in our new food safety measures. I have faith in our new authority and I wish it could be set up faster. But it will only be effective if we have proper enforcement throughout the European Union."@en1
lpv:spokenAs	unknown; Conservative and Unionist Party (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 member; Committee on Development and Cooperation (2002-05-30--2004-07-19)3 vice-chair; Delegation to the EU-Kazakhstan, EU-Kyrgyzstan and EU-Uzbekistan Parliamentary Cooperation Committees and Delegation for relations with Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan and Mongolia (2002-02-07--2004-07-19)3 member; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (2002-01-17--2004-07-19)3 member; EPP-ED (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 member; Members from the European Parliament to the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of the Agreement between the African, Caribbean and Pacific States and the European Union (ACP-EU) (2002-02-06--2004-07-19)3
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata	"(Applause from the right)"1 "Bowis (PPE-DE )."1

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