Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-03-Speech-3-030"
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"en.19991103.5.3-030"2
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"Not a lot astonishes me nowadays. I believe, however, the clarifications that are asked for by the French authorities are not unreasonable. They are related to the date-based export scheme itself. They are related to five topics: traceability, further testing, issues surrounding derived products, further information relating to controls, inspection and controls by the Food and Veterinary Office on the single plant that exists in Truro, in Devon, which slaughters and exports this product, and finally, on the issue of labelling.
In relation to the labelling issue, there is EU-wide legislation in draft at the moment, intended to be implemented by 1 January 2000. Those provisions have been put back for one year because Member States had not completed the preparatory work to enable the legislation to be implemented. In the meantime, the UK authorities have in place their own beef assurance scheme labelling system and have indicated that this labelling system, on a voluntary basis, would operate in respect of exports to France and elsewhere. That, I should stress, is being operated on a voluntary basis. It is not being legislated for at EU level. I would not have the competence nor the desire to do that. As a transitional measure, pending the final implementation of the EU-wide labelling system, this proposal has been put forward by the UK on a voluntary basis and will operate in that way.
I agree fully with what you say, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, that there is no new scientific evidence being put forward by the French authorities. That was confirmed by the Scientific Steering Committee last week. There was up-to-date information but no new evidence to change the opinion of the Scientific Steering Committee.
In relation to the agency I can only refer you to the answer that I gave to Mrs Jackson that my belief is that the establishment of a centralised Commission level food safety authority will go a considerable distance to eliminating these kinds of difficulties. There may be teething problems along the way but it will be the challenge of all of us involved in establishing the legislation for that agency to ensure that the competences of each of the various institutions – whether they be at Community level or at Member State level – properly interact and that each side knows exactly where their competence begins and ends. In those circumstances one is in a position to bring more certainty, rather than less, into the situation."@en1
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