Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-05-Speech-2-049"
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"en.19991005.3.2-049"2
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"Mr President, the fact that the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, is present shows that it is indeed the case that European citizens must be able to rely on their food being safe and healthy. I am referring to food produced here but also to food imported by the European Union. The same safety standards are needed in both cases. This will form an important part of the discussions due to take place at the WTO Round.
What appears to be forgotten is that the food industry is of enormous importance to the European economy. On average, a fifth of disposable income is spent on food and drink. This means that BSE and dioxin scandals and the like do not just harm consumers and farmers, who are often able to do little about it, but, without a doubt, they harm all the workers employed in the industry too. This has many unpleasant consequences.
That is why I also feel that those who take risks with food must be severely punished. On turning again briefly to the relevant section of the food book or the Green Paper, I find that as early as 1997, there were calls for national legislation and European penalties to be harmonised. I have the feeling that nothing has happened there yet and that we are simply taking far too much of a softly softly approach. When someone infringes an environmental law in the United States the name of the company and that of its managing director are published, and so perhaps we could do something similar in the Netherlands.
I have just mentioned the publication of the Green Paper. However, the Commission now wants to produce a White Paper. I have the feeling that this will delay matters somewhat. It would be more useful to receive a proper answer to the questions that were already raised in the Green Paper. Everyone here accepts the need for integral chain management, but how is this actually carried out in the Member States? What control does Europe actually have over this and what options does it have as regards imposing penalties? Problems arise with the animal feed meal. What is being done on that score? It ought only to be permissible for animal feed to contain components of vegetable origin; why is this not so? If this were the case, then the feed would definitely be safe.
My third point relates to supervision. Our system for obtaining scientific advice is now very well organised. We must supervise food safety at a European level. An excellent idea. I am certainly not in favour of a system along American lines. It is the government that must be responsible for food safety, fulfilling a coordinating function. But what would the Commission do if, for example, food safety controls in the Netherlands were to be improved upon by those of a new agency? Would Brussels be informed? Do you have an opinion on this? All these sorts of affairs are going to have to be better organised."@en1
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