Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-07-22-Speech-4-027"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"1999-07-22"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Dioxin2
dcterms:Language	"en"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.19990722.2.4-027"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:1999-07-22-Speech-4-0282
lpv:speaker	lp:Phillip Whitehead2
lpv:spoken text	"The dioxin story is very familiar to those of us in the United Kingdom who have lived through BSE. Many of the ingredients are exactly the same – disagreeable and even disgusting practices in the preparation of some animal foodstuffs in a world of intensive agriculture and panic and deceit in some of the Member States concerned when the source of contamination is first discovered. We must remember this was discovered in January 1999 and the Commission was only able to take action after a period of months and a good deal of obfuscation. What we have now seen is the same set of arguments that perhaps they were trying to avoid: a consumer panic and protection of a market – a market which is actually now much more imperilled by the way in which the crisis has unfolded. I think there are dangers of overreaction and some Members have referred to that. What I would say is that we must learn lessons from this crisis. Firstly, a vigorous and properly funded inspectorate must be established to take a preventative role in this matter. We are now talking about significant changes in the law, long lists of further regulations of substances which may be banned. I certainly do not know, because I do not have the technical expertise, whether the range of recovered vegetable oils which are now seen to be a source of risk should be subject to an outright ban, or whether it should simply be limited to some section of kitchen waste which should never have been in any form of animal foodstuff in the first instance. What I do know is that the inspectorate which we have fought for – we had to fight to get an effective budget for it, to set up the veterinary office in Brussels and to make sure that we had the principle of general inspections throughout the Community – that inspectorate finds itself threatened and bullied. We have had examples in my country and in Belgium of people being physically threatened, of being blackmailed and in some instances even murdered! Now when that is the situation, how can we say that the proposal, welcome as it is, to look at a Europe-wide Food and Drugs Agency and all these grand gestures can work when no individual inspector can penetrate into the world of crime and fraud which characterises sections of this industry. So, in my opinion, we have to put our own House in order in this matter. We have to be able to say, as the motion of the Socialist Group does, that the rule of law must apply, that we are a Community of law, and unless we have a universal application, which never happened in the wake of BSE, of the regulations, the situation cannot improve. Simply to bring forward new lists to imperil the producers and not to safeguard the consumer in the actions involved is the wrong way forward."@en1
lpv:spokenAs	member; PES (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 unknown; Labour Party (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 member; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (1999-07-21--2002-01-14)3
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata	"Whitehead (PSE)"1

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