Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-25-Speech-3-030"
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"en.20001025.2.3-030"2
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"Mr President, the fact that only 19 amendments have been tabled in this Chamber on a subject as complex as this one, which very quickly stirs up feelings and leads to heated emotions, is a sign that excellent preparatory work has been done with the rapporteur on a basis of trust, and also involving all the other groups in the committee. I wish to thank the rapporteur for that.
The White Paper is by no means an answer to any of the crises. It was high time that the Commission produced the White Paper to follow the Green Paper published many years ago now. It should also be said, as some of the previous speakers have done, and in particular Mr Whitehead and Mrs Gebhardt, that the White Paper is more than just another set of EU rules and regulations. For example, the White Paper must ensure that conditions are created in which safe food is possible at all. If we do not manage to modernise the early warning system and make it work, then there is little point in worrying about much else. If we cannot manage to get the early warning system to emphasise the Member States' responsibility, then we will have a problem. We need to apply stricter legislation, stricter guidelines and stricter criteria to animal feed. Hygiene regulations governing animal feed production, and also regarding checks, need to be much tougher. Without a new framework directive we will be helpless in many areas of food safety. With this in mind, the Commission has presented some 80 proposals – either totally new or proposals for amendments – a very ambitious programme indeed. I can see that in some areas the Commission is already active. I believe that this programme is a step in the right direction.
Of course we are all talking mainly about this new Food Safety Agency. We agreed in committee what this new authority can and cannot do, but I would also like to remind you that food safety is important. We already have scientific bodies in the EU which look after this. However, if we cannot succeed in getting the Member States to actually carry out checks on the spot on the basis of the legislation, if we cannot manage to oblige them to provide information on who checks what, when and how often, then even if we created 20 new authorities in the European Union, not a jot would change as regards food safety. We should not lose sight of that, because in that case, a new authority, whatever it was called, would just be a smokescreen and a token gesture. Some country somewhere would then be happy to provide a home for this new authority, but otherwise nothing would happen. The expressions that then come to mind are "everyone turns a blind eye" or "the dog barks, but the caravan moves on". Hygiene regulations and on-the-spot checks should be the slogan of the hour. And the ones who need to do something about this are not so much the Commission and ourselves, but rather the Member States, who so far have not done their homework."@en1
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