Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-05-Speech-3-248"
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that the second reading in this House is taking place so quickly is a clear sign that all of you, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Papayannakis, regard this subject, a very important one for consumers, as a key priority and that it is indeed your objective that compulsory labelling should come into force on time on 1 September. I would therefore first of all like to sincerely thank the rapporteur and everyone who cooperated with him for the excellent and rapid progress that has been made with this.
One of the two new amendments reiterates the view that producers of minced beef should give precise details of the origin of the beef they have processed. Ladies and gentlemen, given the industrial conditions under which minced beef is produced nowadays, this would quite obviously be asking too much. Although the industry agrees with watertight guarantees of origin, it is already having great difficulties in giving details about the point of slaughter and of preparation for minced beef products. This demonstrates that the regulation will also have a similar impact. So it will certainly not be possible to put the new proposal into practice. If the worst came to the worst, it could even lead to some companies, especially in the smaller Member States, going bankrupt and the market for minced beef being completely renationalised. That is the effect it would have. And you cannot convince me that a Polish cow imported into Austria would be a problem for Austrian consumers. Because I can tell the honourable Member that if a consumer buys minced beef in a butcher’s shop in Austria, he has the piece of meat minced in front of his own eyes, and in that case there are no problems either with origin or anything else. What we are talking about here is really industrial processing of minced beef to make burgers and similar products, and nowadays that is a continuous industrial process. If you start interfering in that, then companies like this will use products originating solely in their own country and nothing else. And that would result in the opposite of what we are trying to achieve.
The other amendment proposes making it compulsory to give the date minced beef was produced, and this is not the first time we have debated this idea. However, the label already features a more direct and clearer way of giving the consumer such vital information – the use-by date, which shows how long the minced beef can be used for. I do not therefore believe that this new proposal would improve or add to information for consumers. The common position also provides for such information to be given under the ‘simplified procedure’ if anyone requires this. I therefore suggest that we should stick to the provisions on minced beef as laid down in the common position. I am sure that if you take a closer look at the text you will see that the rules stipulated in it are strict enough and that our objective of improving transparency has been achieved.
I would now like to turn to the much discussed issue of category. As you know, this formed part of the original Commission proposal, and I think there is a lot to be said for giving this information. It leads to greater transparency and I believe it is important for consumers. I can only tell you that where I come from, you pay 50% more for veal than for beef. So as a consumer, I would like to know what I am paying 50% more for. There is also a price difference of about one third depending on whether I am buying beef from a cow or beef from a young bull. In that case it is surely in the interest of consumers to know what they are paying more for and to be given a guarantee that when they pay a higher price, they are actually getting what they paid for. Let me explain now what we are actually proposing here.
Categories have already been compulsory in the Community for 20 years as far as whole carcasses are concerned. The existing categories are: calves, young bulls, bullocks, heifers, cows and older bulls. This is also intended as the basis for introducing categories in this case. We simply want the labelling already applying to whole carcasses to apply to individual cuts as well. That is all. We are also willing to make distinctions for meat prepared in different ways. For example, it is not necessary to make a precise distinction for casserole meat, since as I see it is enough to know if you are buying veal or beef casserole meat.
That is what this is about, and that alone! If you say that the Commission does not even know what form the final system will take, then I have to reply that this is a typical chicken-and-egg situation. We cannot lay down Commission rules and implementing provisions until a Council regulation is in force.
The category detail is a matter for the implementing provisions. So you cannot demand guarantees from the Commission as to exactly how the whole system will operate, because we will have to discuss this with the Member States in the Management Committee first. What you are calling for here is not legally possible, unless you want to make the whole system part of the Council regulation itself. But that would be another kettle of fish. That is why I think that the procedure proposed here is correct. But I can give you one assurance, if you wish: the Commission will be backing the categories that I have mentioned, but not anything more complicated.
We have to be clear about one thing: if we do not introduce these categories, the result will be a return to national labelling systems in this area too. That can surely not be in Europe’s interest. Of course, politically speaking there is more than one way of looking at this issue. Although the Commission, and I think I have made this clear, does not agree with those who think that providing this information is impracticable, pointless or prohibitively expensive, I cannot say that a system without this kind of provision is out of the question. But what the Commission wanted to avoid at all costs was a return to national schemes, which in practice would lead to a total renationalisation of markets, thus undermining the common market. Surely that is not the idea. So I believe that we should adhere to the common position in this respect as well.
I would now like to make two brief points. Mr Hudghton asked if it would be possible to display information regarding the area of origin, such as the Orkney Islands for example, on a voluntary basis. Such voluntary information on area of origin is possible, as long as protected designations of origin are not involved, because it logically follows that protected designations of origin must be protected as such.
That brings me to the last argument put forward by various Members, that is to say the failure to introduce technical requirements. If we were to gear our decision-making to when it occurs to the last Member State that it is now ready to establish technical requirements, then we would be gearing the process to those who are dragging their feet on compulsory beef labelling. We cannot accept that, it would be counterproductive. The market will in fact penalise those who were not prepared to establish the technical requirements for beef labelling promptly.
I would therefore ask you to bear these considerations in mind when you vote tomorrow. I can also assure you that this system will not be as complicated in practice as many of you here imagine. This is a mock-up of how one of these labels will look in future. And there is still room for the price and any other information consumers specifically require anyway. You see, it can work!
Timing has always been vital in this area, and it still is. You all know that the introduction of the compulsory labelling system had to be deferred last December because agreement could not be reached within the time frame available. This deferral expires on 31 August, which in practice means that it runs out at the end of this month, because Parliament does not sit in August and no further sittings can be called.
We must all ensure that the pledge we made to all European beef consumers and also to producers and processors is respected. In order to avoid further postponement or, even worse, a legal vacuum on labelling, we must therefore come to a final decision this month.
Before I talk about the amendments tabled for tomorrow’s vote, I would like to make a couple of brief comments about the Council common position approved by the Council on 6 June. As you know, I pressed for an informal trialogue on the issue of the legal basis. This took place on 3 May. The Members participating in that meeting also asked for appropriate explanations regarding the draft of the Council common position.
Once a number of further changes to the text requested by Parliament had been made, it was possible to reach an agreement based on which the following Agriculture Council approved the Council common position. This was then formally transmitted to Parliament in mid-June together with the Commission’s communication. This goes to show how well the codecision process could actually function on agricultural matters.
Despite the shortage of time, the Council produced what I regard as a workable compromise taking account of the amendments you adopted at first reading. This reconciled the consumer’s right to guaranteed origin with the need for a practical system.
Like Parliament, the Council also recognised that compulsory labelling needed to be introduced earlier than stipulated in the original proposal. Furthermore, the Council even complied with Parliament’s request to delete all references to EU origin. Lastly, the Council also took on board the request for stricter labelling requirements for minced beef, and tightened up the wording of the rules proposed by the Commission.
It was only possible to achieve all these joint solutions between the Council and Parliament because the Member States agreed that no more national beef labelling schemes would apply after 2002. The greatest achievement was reaching agreement on a uniform Community-wide labelling scheme for beef. We should not therefore jeopardise this common interest and this move towards integration again.
As we have now heard from the Committee on the Environment, we are not yet out of the woods, politically speaking.
There are now amendments to be considered in plenary sitting, and approving some of these amendments would have far-reaching consequences, above all in terms of timing and as regards the adoption of the regulation. For example, as several speakers have noted, two amendments on labelling minced beef have been tabled. This issue has been scrutinised in great detail both here in Parliament and also by the Council. You will see that the Council has taken your comments on board and has tightened up the wording of the rules, and has in fact made them even stricter than stipulated in the original Commission proposal."@en1
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