Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-05-Speech-2-014"
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"en.19991005.3.2-014"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in recent years, and particularly in recent months, the European citizens you represent have been shocked by a succession of food safety scandals. There have been times when, like today, they were no longer sure of what they were eating, and no longer believed that governments or even scientists could ensure that food was really safe. Our task today is to make every effort to see that this distrust does not occur again. You and I are as personally affected by this problem as any other European consumer is. It is our responsibility to protect the health of our fellow-citizens. It is our specific duty to take the fast, decisive steps that our citizens are demanding.
I would also add that food safety has international importance, as trade disputes with the United States and other countries have shown. The body responsible for settling these disputes is the World Trade Organisation, and therefore, in the Millennium Round, the European Union will be pushing for the establishment of credible international food standards, with consumers’ representatives taking part in the process.
We must also clarify how the precautionary principle is used with regard to food safety. This is another Pillar. The idea behind the precautionary principle is very simple: provisional safety measures must be taken where scientific information is incomplete and when there are still concerns over safety. The problem is that scientific knowledge is always incomplete because we are constantly pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge. So there are questions to be asked about the precautionary principle – how much concern must there be for safety? Whose opinion do we need before restrictive trade measures are introduced on the basis of the precautionary principle? How complete must our scientific knowledge be before these measures are dropped? We need to clarify these points and a parliamentary debate is a positive step. As for any trade negotiations the European Union enters into, I want to stress that our priority will be the protection of consumers’ health. There is no possibility of the Community being party to international agreements where we believe this would jeopardise our citizens’ health, even if this is a highly controversial point.
I would again like to stress that the Union’s food policy must have food safety as its prime objective and it should be at the service of consumers and their health. Health takes precedence. Having said that, I would add that I firmly believe that a rigorous food safety policy is also in the interests of European farmers and processors. Agricultural and processing firms must be in the front line when it comes to the production of high-quality food. Public confidence is essential here. So what are the initiatives the Commission intends to launch? We want to avoid knee-jerk reactions which would lead to disorganised measures. It is our duty to be cautious, concerned and committed to action. Food safety is a field where we must tread carefully without rushing in headlong, yet we must move swiftly.
Therefore, before the end of the year, we shall present to the Council and European Parliament a White Paper on Food Safety and a Communication on the precautionary principle, which must be studied thoroughly. The White Paper will include an action plan on food safety, setting out a clear timetable for action over the next three years, including options for a possible European food agency. Our aim is a fundamental reform of food law and we will put forward all Commission proposals for this before the end of 2000. On this basis, we intend to establish an organised and up-to-date body of legislation by 2002, because some time is needed to actually establish it.
One final remark. Life is not a risk-free zone. No food can ever be guaranteed totally safe. What we must do though, is involve consumers’ representatives much more fully in the decision-making process. They, in turn, must try to educate and guide the public. These are important issues and reactions may be emotional. But it is clear that for a debate to be fruitful, it cannot take place in an atmosphere where passion holds sway. I look forward to a debate characterised not by tension but by clarity. We need to be sure of what we do, and ensure the safety of our citizens.
Food safety is an integral part of health protection. The issue is also important because of its cultural dimension, which we absolutely must not overlook. Europeans see food as part of their way of life and their identity. For these reasons, the new Commission has made food safety a top priority and I am glad that this is the first subject of debate of my term of office.
As regards food hygiene and safety, we must be proactive. We must not run around putting out fires as we have done up till now, but must make sure fires cannot start or not let them take hold. To do this, we must put an efficient and credible food safety system in place. As a consumer, I have to know exactly what is in a food product, a packet, or a jar and I have the right to know because this right, amongst others, is enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam. Labels do not always give me understandable information and I often do not realise the health and nutritional implications of my choice. I often do not understand what the environmental and ethical implications are of the way my food is produced. Just suppose the newspapers were talking about a food scare. I, as a consumer, would not know whether there really was cause for concern or if it was only a piece of sensationalist journalism. If I looked it up on the Internet, a lot of the information would be incomprehensible. And I would not know how much of it was trustworthy or had been manipulated for political and economic purposes.
These are just some aspects of the consumer policy we need to think about. Citizens have to know the absolute truth about what they eat. A starting point could be to give consumers access to a Community rapid alert system, and ensure that it covers not only agricultural products but also animal feedingstuffs. This would create a system to avoid counterproductive alarms and simply crying ‘wolf’.
However, all too many of the recent scares have been well-founded, so we need to tighten up our food inspection system. The entire food production chain, from the fields to our tables, should be closely and rigorously monitored at every stage and in every Member State. In a single market, all citizens have the right to equal protection. We must therefore update the laws which the food inspection system is based on.
In 1997, the Commission issued a Green Paper which we must follow-up with the appropriate measures in order to streamline and modernise our food law. At the moment there are, for example, more than 100 basic directives on agricultural products and processed food. What we need is a single body of legislation. Food law must cover the whole food chain, from the countryside to the consumer. It must include the production of animal feedingstuffs, which has been one of the most sensitive issues over recent months. It must be flexible, so that it can easily be kept in line with advancing scientific knowledge and new production techniques. It must be based on information and sound, up-to-date scientific opinion.
The Commission currently consults the highest-level scientists, whose views are transparent and whose interests are publicly declared. But we absolutely must win back public confidence in our food and, therefore, the scientists have to be independent of dubious political pressure. One way to achieve this is to set up an independent European food agency. Several Member States have already gone down this path by setting up independent food safety authorities. A European food agency could, perhaps, be modelled along the lines of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA). This agency has no decision-making power, but takes action of a mainly technical nature, with notable swiftness and efficiency. If anything goes wrong in connection with a drug, the agency can find the source of the problem within hours. However, in the case of a food scare, this can take weeks and weeks.
Another potential model – one of many – is the Food and Drugs Administration, which has far-reaching powers of initiative and decision. Such a body would enable action on food safety to be taken very rapidly, independently of politics. The problem, of course, would be how to ensure that decisions were taken democratically. This is why it is so important for this debate to begin in Parliament. This is why we are here today, because it is clear that we are faced with a choice where the issue of democracy is extremely important. Moreover, I am not sure that such an agency could be set up with the guarantees that some people ask for under the Treaty. Here too, we must examine the matter more closely. I do not yet have a ready-made answer, as this is a decision we must make together. Let us remember though, that consumers need a clear, specific and strong choice, and not a choice that allows doubts to linger because, in recent years, we have had far too many of them."@en1
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