Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-25-Speech-3-181"
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"en.20001025.6.3-181"2
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".
At first glance, the Commission's White Paper on food safety appears to be full of good intentions, since it mainly proposes the creation of a European Food Safety Agency responsible for managing a rapid alert network and totally independent when it advises the management authorities.
But on reading the report or perusing the European Parliament's resolution on the same subject, the picture becomes far less pleasing.
In fact it becomes clear that the purpose of the agency is to take over national defence powers, or to paralyse them, and to put them at the service of the Commission's objectives. Now that is absolutely intolerable. The French must remember that despite the Commission's splendid declarations about its resolve "to assure the highest standards of food safety" in the Union, it is actually the Commission, and none other, that is giving precedence to the demands of the free movement of products over public health requirements; it is the Commission, and none other, that has, for example, just dragged France before the Court of Justice for maintaining its ban on British beef. It is unacceptable that we should abandon any part of our national right of decision and right of protection, in relation to food safety questions. However, the creation of that agency is imperceptibly guiding us in that very direction.
First of all, we must remember that the power to provide advice plays a capital part. In the mad cow affair, the reason the French Government continued the ban was because it was backed up by the independent opinion of the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA), even though the supposedly scientific European committee saw nothing wrong with allowing British meat to be imported into France. Consequently, if a European agency is necessary, it must be complementary to the national agencies and in no way reduce their legitimacy. That is not at all the direction taken by the White Paper, which wants to make the European agency into a "scientific point of reference for the whole Union" (page 5).
Secondly, the European agency must be completely independent. The director of the agency should certainly not be appointed by the Commission, contrary to what the European Parliament is proposing (paragraph 21 of the resolution). Nor should the Commission appoint the scientific experts, even following what appears to be a rigorous selection procedure. Moreover, the agency must be able to criticise the Commission itself. That is not at all the view of the White Paper, which calls for the agency to develop very close working links with the Commission services because, as it explains with a certain aplomb, "it will allow the Authority (Agency) to be responsive to the needs of the Commission services" (page 20).
Thirdly, the Agency must not encroach upon the management of risks and regulatory power. The Commission's White Paper has the grace to admit that, but on closer perusal we find that the regulatory power it is so keen to protect is that of... the Commission, and not the states. That does not prevent the Commission and Parliament from christening the agency a "European Authority", a title totally contrary to the philosophy that supposedly inspires it. The European Parliament even adds, in paragraph 6 of its resolution, the phrase "while subjecting the powers to be transferred to detailed scrutiny", just when we thought that no powers were to be transferred.
We therefore believe that the White Paper and Parliament's report are traps, which is why we are opposed to them. The Member States must retain full responsibility for food safety, because they are close to their people and will react more rapidly than the Commission, which, moreover is constantly blinded by its free-trade prejudices. There is without doubt a need for an agency that takes a European view of the situation, but it must be strictly consultative and totally independent. The best idea would be for it to emanate solely from the national agencies and to network with them."@en1
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