Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-29-Speech-5-034"
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"en.19991029.3.5-034"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, this debate and situation have come at the worst possible time for the EU and is causing a lot of harm. Just think, ladies and gentlemen: we should and must defend the European agricultural model at the WTO talks in Seattle.
We have made a decision that there should be no import ban on British meat but, nonetheless, within the EU – an EU which should represent a free economic area at its best – a decision is being made to impose an import ban. This is an absolutely inconceivable situation! The English have had to suffer the inconveniences of BSE for quite long enough. They have done all they can to get the problem off the agenda and solved. That was a very commendable thing. It seems inconceivable that we should take a joint decision to lift the ban on the export of British meat, and yet we decide, for our part, that the ban on importing it has not been lifted at all.
Just think of the future, when we are discussing EU enlargement. Let us take the example of Poland. If Poland’s agricultural standards quickly reach the average standards in the EU, it will just about be able to feed the whole of the EU on its own. That is why we must defend the European agricultural model at the WTO talks, so as to safeguard exports in the future since, in the years and decades to come, we will not find a solution to the problems of agriculture anywhere else but in exports. These are basic principles.
In a way both England and France are guilty: it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. If, in Finland, my country, we were to make feed which had had sludge added to it, that plant would be closed down the next day – you can be quite sure of that. There is no way you can produce feed from sludge. We in the EU are allowing this situation to continue, although it was banned in 1991.
We will certainly have to take a good look at ourselves and contemplate what sort of image we want to present to the outside world, and how we should accomplish that, in this very difficult and delicate situation, when we join the WTO talks and when we consider the issue of EU enlargement and what the future will look like. These sorts of crises have to be dealt with very quickly. We can do it by ourselves, and only by ourselves, and we must do so as quickly as possible."@en1
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