Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-05-Speech-2-052"
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"en.19991005.3.2-052"2
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"Mr President, I have asked my group to again give me the opportunity at the end of this debate to elucidate a number of points arising from it. Let me now again emphasise, Mr Prodi, that what you have talked about – and what has also in part become clear from many other interventions – is something which you ought to, if you would, take home with you.
For us, there are three essential points. We need good, proper legislation, and we need it quickly. There is one thing you must do in connection with this, Mr Prodi: you must also put your own house in order. It is just not acceptable that responsibilities should be scattered among different Directorates-General with the result that no healthy, sensible legislation comes into being. It is not acceptable that Directorate-General III should be responsible for processed food, drugs and genetically-modified organisms and that Directorate-General XXIV should also have a portion of responsibility for these while Directorates-General VI and XI should retain a small portion of responsibility for feedingstuffs. This is just not on, and I would ask you, Mr Prodi, to regulate the situation in a sensible way. Legislative powers belong inevitably with whatever Directorate-General is responsible for consumer protection and health policy.
What is more, we have established in this debate that we need good scientific advice. Many of our colleagues have referred to this and have said that we need an independent, authoritative advisory body. I would say again that any such advisory body must not be influenced by Member States or the interests of industry, Mr Prodi, and it ought not to have any powers to lay down regulations. This power lies with the European Parliament alone and, in a small number of exceptional cases, with the Commission in its comitological proceedings. Nowhere else! We must be in agreement about this.
We then come to the subject of supervision, Mr Prodi. When we have all this – that is to say when we have good, healthy, sensible and integrative legislation, together with good scientific advice – we still need supervision. I would ask you to make it clear to the Member States that supervision cannot be had for free. In recent years, the Member States have neglected their obligation to implement legislation and supervise production. They have never really reported to us about how many supervisors in the Member States supervise what, when and where. It is, however, their duty to do this, and you, Mr Prodi, must convey this unpleasant news to the Member States. When the Member States in fact carry out what should have been their task for a long time, namely to check that food does not poison us but enables us to live, then we still have a supervisory authority at the Commission. We have the Control Office, or the Foodstuffs and Veterinary Office, which reports to Mr Byrne’s department and which has its headquarters in Dublin. In the Committee on Budgets, we have just now decided that this body should have more departments so that it can carry out its supervisory tasks. I would ask you, Mr Prodi, to lend your support to the idea that this body in Dublin should be able to visit the Member States without warning, that it should have investigative powers and that it should be able to carry out its task of overseeing the relevant supervisory arrangements in the Member States.
Once these three goals have been achieved, that is to say, once we have designed sensible legislation, have access to scientific advice at a high level and are properly carrying out the relevant supervision, only then are we really on the safe side. Then, we shall have a system unlike any other in the world. We shall then also be able to go to the WTO negotiations in Seattle and say: everything is above board, we are not practising protectionism, we are enabling our citizens to live healthily and that is what we also want for you in the United States and in the developing countries. We want to cooperate in what we do. This, however, is our task: that we should put our house in order, as we already have done in a sense. It is still not perhaps perfect in every detail. We are, however, getting there. We must, then, also make this clear outside the European Union in the negotiations which will begin with the Millennium Round. I believe that we shall then be able to say to our citizens: nothing is ever guaranteed in life, but we are providing you with the highest possible levels of safety, well-being and health that, as far as anyone can judge and on the basis of scientific advice, we can offer at present. If that is your stated goal, Mr Prodi, then you will be a successful President of the Commission."@en1
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