Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-05-Speech-2-041"
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"en.19991005.3.2-041"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Prodi, consumers are living ever longer lives and are becoming ever healthier at more advanced ages. In spite of this, the subject of food safety is high up on the agenda. I believe that producers and consumers are in the same boat here, for the producers are themselves also consumers. That is something we sometimes forget in the overall discussion. Losses in the cattle and meat industry due to falling sales caused by constant public discussion of these matters are, however, unsustainable in the longer term.
In Germany, a country in which animal corpses and waste from slaughterhouses are recycled in the appropriate manner, the discussion of animal feed has now become a macabre media spectacle. Unappetising pictures, together with headlines about the everyday cycle of horror in disgusting factories, are increasingly marginalising meat production and the practice of keeping livestock on farms. The fact is that, in a number of countries, sewage sludge is now also being declared a biomass and animal feed enriched with this is driving the last customer away from the meat counter. Feedingstuffs legislation is part of a quite distorted picture. I appeal to you and to us all. We can no longer skulk in dark corners. That must be our maxim! Should the consumer really be convinced, in the future too, that farm animals have been reduced to the status of interim depositories for dubious feedingstuffs? Is the consumer to go on thinking that we in the EU close down farms and so give up cultivating cereal, but burn the corpses of our animals and use meat and bone meal as animal feed? I cannot begin to imagine that, in this period of innovation, we cannot find new and different ways of disposing of waste.
Our farmers certainly do not want this policy. Should the consumer then continue voluntarily supporting this practice through his consumption of meat? He will simply not do this, and for ethical, moral and emotional reasons. Declining to use meat and bone meal as animal feed benefits both producer and consumer. Voluntarily refusing to be involved in such processes is something which is already seen to be having a very positive influence upon the way in which meat is advertised.
I shall say one more thing: as far as I am concerned, food is not superfluous junk. Food is now already being wasted, partly because of production costs. This state of affairs also has a bad effect upon European agriculture. Mr Prodi, it is not acceptable to deceive consumers again, as in the dioxin scandal. We need an entirely clear information policy in all Member States. The tactic of covering up these matters really must be brought to an end. I fully support you when you say that we need a comprehensive system of labelling. This should include everything of relevance to the consumer. But we also need reasonable prices so that both producer and consumer are in accord with one another."@en1
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