Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-25-Speech-3-027"
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"en.20001025.2.3-027"2
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"Mr President, it is clear that there is considerable enthusiasm for the establishment of a European Food Safety Agency, as our rapporteur would prefer to call it. In the UK, as in many other countries, we have now set up our own agency amidst similar enthusiasm.
It started work this year and many had high expectations of it. However, with the advent of Mr Byrne's ambitious proposals, it would seem that this national initiative is to be absorbed into the EU structures. In this, we are obliged to Mr Bowis. In his report he confirms the subordinate nature of the British agency when he remarks that "It is essential that the Commission coordinates its various departments including . . . national food agencies." As an aside, I must express my puzzlement about how a Conservative MEP can apparently embrace so easily the absorption of yet another British institution when his party stands on a platform of being opposed to further integration.
This notwithstanding, it may come as a surprise to Members that I support the concept of a pan-European approach to food safety, which is embodied in the concept of the EFSA. Despite so often being branded as a "little Englander" by my British colleagues, I have no difficulty in acknowledging that germs know no boundaries. However, if germs fail to respect national boundaries, they will, and of course do, fail to respect EU borders.
Thus, despite the enthusiasm for yet another EU agency, any effective control programme must look beyond the limited vision of a mere 15 states. It must take a wider perspective. In this we are fortunate. Since 1984 we have had the highly effective World Health Organisation's surveillance programme for the control of food-borne infections and intoxications in Europe, based in Berlin at the Von Ostertag-Institut.
Interestingly, unlike the little Europeans who are so often behind this EU project, the WHO's concept of Europe originally embraced 32 countries, which included the former Soviet Union and has since expanded to include all countries from the Urals to the Atlantic, from Iceland to Israel. Not only does the WHO cover Europe it also has a wider remit across the whole planet and this is important. If one charts the progress of the main food-borne diseases which currently affect Europe, most actually made their first appearance in the Americas.
For instance, to name but one, the recent threat of E. coli O157 probably emerged in South America. It then spread to the USA, then to Canada, thence to Australia and Japan, before significant outbreaks occurred in mainland Europe – the first one being in Germany. As a result, many of the control initiatives which have subsequently been adopted in Europe, have originated in other countries, particularly the USA. Risk assessment must start where the problems starts. Therefore, if one acknowledges the need for a transnational agency to bolster the efforts of individual agencies – and indeed I do – then any such agency should not only deal with Europe: it must have a global reach taking in global information. That is precisely what the WHO does for us: working with its regional organisations in a wholly integrated manner. This cannot be achieved by an EU organisation.
Given that the WHO programme remains properly funded and supported, there would appear to be no need whatsoever for yet another agency, especially one with such a limited reach as the 15 Member States of the European Union. Food safety is far too important for it to become yet another excuse for EU integration. It displays the very worst of the European Union, because the perception is one of control freakery."@en1
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