Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-11-Speech-1-092"
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"en.20010611.5.1-092"2
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"Mr President, it is a real pleasure to hear Mrs Winberg and the Commissioner speaking with one voice on an issue which should concern us all. This seems to me to mark a turning point in how this Parliament debates these matters, because it sets out here a coherent, ethical framework by which we should all subsequently be judged.
Animals are not merely products, nor are they simply commodities. One of the most appalling things I heard in my own country came from a trader concerning the spread of foot-and-mouth disease: "They are commodities. I take them around. I trade them here, I trade them there." They are not stocks and shares. They are not speculative metals. They are sentient creatures. Because of that I believe, with the Commissioner, that the way in which animals are kept reflects on us morally, but also practically, in that bad conditions for animals affect the health and safety of humans as well. The Food Safety Authority will need to address this matter.
The Commissioner is right to say that consumers would be prepared to pay more for ‘ethical food’. Another thing they want – but do not always get – is follow-through in the area where animal welfare is promised, but not always delivered. Like everyone else in this House, I hope and expect that the sow stalls proposal will go through on Thursday. It will certainly have our support.
I would like to feel that at the same time we are looking at other issues which, because they are cherished in some Member State or in some particular group or community within the European Union, are shrugged aside. I have seen recently that the Italians have tackled the issue of how
is produced. Others have begun to raise the issue of the cruelties involved in the breeding of animals for the fur trade. Now we are coming to the point where, in the testing of chemicals, perhaps we ought to have an absolute assurance (and I know Commissioner Byrne has gone some way towards this already) that we will minimise – and I use that word advisedly – the number of animals sacrificed in the validation of chemical testing. Those things seem to me to be enormously important.
Against such a backdrop we can begin to persuade the WTO that these issues are humanitarian, not protectionist. Then, perhaps, we will able to fashion the means of arriving at a food system in which people matter, but animals matter too."@en1
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