Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-05-Speech-4-019"
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"en.20010405.2.4-019"2
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"Mr President, Members of Parliament, today we have an opportunity to discuss another important food safety issue which is the labelling of compound feedingstuffs. I appreciate the work which has been done by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf who is very committed to this issue.
The proposal in question has its origins in the legitimate expectations and demands of both the farming community and consumers. This includes full transparency in giving livestock farmers details of the composition of compound feedingstuffs that they buy for their animals. One of the lessons of the dioxin crisis was that there was often a lack of such information. This is clearly not satisfactory. This information should be available, not only to ensure transparency but also to assist in the traceability of products. The labelling of compound feedingstuffs must be sufficiently accurate to allow the stock farmer to make an informed choice as to which feed to use and many of you have already made that point in your contributions.
I am satisfied that this objective is met in the Council's common position. While it falls short of the Commission's original proposal of full and precise listing of the quantities of all ingredients, it nonetheless strikes an acceptable compromise. In my opinion we have an excellent instrument for improving the existing labelling rules for animal feed. The common position provides for all ingredients to be precisely named and for the quantities to be expressed in five percentage bands. It also requires operators to notify the exact composition of the compound feedingstuff on the request of the stock farmer or any operator.
I would also like to remind you that, from the very beginning, there were difficulties in the Council in reaching an agreement. A majority of Member States were opposed to the obligation to indicate on the label the precise composition of a given compound feedingstuff. For this reason, the Commission accepted the French presidency's compromise which had the unanimous support of all the Member States. I also consider that the common position provides us with a level of safety equivalent to that set out in the Commission's initial proposal. The most important fact is the presence of an ingredient in the compound feedingstuff and not necessarily its exact quantity. These exact quantities have a commercial value but they are not linked to health protection and that is the important issue in this consideration.
I would ask Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf to reconsider seriously what he said earlier in his contribution that if there is not a change in the Council position in relation to this, he will be happy to see his entire proposal fall rather than compromise on this particular issue. I believe I am correct in saying that the issue of public health and food safety is related to the presence rather than the quantity of what is contained in the compound feedingstuff. We should focus on that and not lose the benefit of this important piece of legislation. We risk pursuing a particular point to a degree of accuracy that is unnecessary and thus cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
I am afraid that if the amendments which the Commission cannot accept are adopted, we will embark on a long and difficult conciliation procedure which will postpone the improvement. I would also underline that the amendments adopted by the European Parliament at first reading have been accepted in the common position except for the proposal that the Commission present a positive list of feed materials that may be used in animal feed. This is inappropriate in the context of the labelling directive. If you want a positive list, the first issue to be discussed is how to establish the criteria by which the positive list will be managed. I therefore intend to launch a feasibility study on the criteria which could be used for managing the positive list and the resources which this would involve. We can then report back to you, possibly with the proposal for legislation. I do not expect this to be possible within the timetable mentioned in the amendment. Unfortunately our resources and other priorities do not allow the Commission to set a more ambitious timetable.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to amend slightly an answer I gave to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf on the question of foot-and-mouth disease the other day and correct the record. The point he made was that the Commission had delayed in its response to the issues arising from the foot-and-mouth disease issue. I responded by saying that the Commission had been notified on 20 February of the outbreak in the United Kingdom and that we had put forward proposals to the Commission the following day and that in my view that indicated a prompt rather than a delayed response.
There is one further piece of information that I should have added to this in fairness to the official working in my Directorate-General who by implication was criticised by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf. Mr van Goethem was told at 9.30 p.m. on 20 February and by 10.30 p.m. that night he had sent a fax to every single relevant minister in the Member States of the European Union. I want to add that particular piece of information to the answer I gave the other day which included the fact that, on the following day, the issue was brought before the Commission promptly. It may be an opportunity for Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf to correct the suggestion he made about the delay, not for my sake but for the sake of the officials who work hard in my Directorate-General and who did an excellent job in this instance."@en1
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