Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-12-Speech-2-041"
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"en.20010612.3.2-041"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Whitehead’s report on the setting up of a European Food Authority to be responsible for food safety appears to us to be moving in the right direction, both in its analysis of the situation which led to the proposal to create this authority and as regards the tasks that will be assigned to the authority and the proposed method of ensuring that it operates in the best possible way.
We must remember that this initiative is the result, unfortunately, of a series of repeated scandals connected, on the one hand, with the desire to increase agricultural productivity and, on the other, with the monopoly enjoyed by the major distributors, which have led to health-conscious, industrial farming but have not prevented the development of scandalous trends such as chicken containing dioxin, trafficking in veterinary products of all kinds, and in particular the fundamental crisis of BSE.
Putting all these things right is one of the main objectives of this agency, in order to safeguard the health and safety of the consumer all the way from the farm to the fork. It must play a double role, on the one hand ensuring safety along the whole length of the food chain, and on the other hand guaranteeing the quality of all products intended for the consumer. In order to do this, it will operate at an earlier stage in the process than the institutions, because every citizen must have the right to healthy, safe food. Moreover, like those in the industry itself, it must be aware of the rules that this implies and of the costs that it represents.
At the beginning of next year, in order to apply the principles of transparency and completely independent monitoring, the Food Authority will have to propose the principles which this document correctly sets out. It must be able to provide analytical input on any product, including any genetically modified organisms, vaccinations and pesticides which might at any moment enter the food chain. The failure of public health awareness as the only reference criterion has been proved following the scandal of animal meal. Such an agency must be able to set out a list of measures constituting good practice, of labels for products having special local characteristics, and of farm-type qualities, rather than merely industrial standards which cannot prevent either salmonella or alarming epidemics. Its main mission is above all to serve as a coordinator for the national agencies, so as to ensure that they all recognise the same references and so that their role in providing scientific evaluation and preventing risks is sufficiently well publicised.
Of course it will have to require the same controls and traceability rules for all the countries of the Union, whether for their exports, their imports or their own consumption. As for where it should be located, this is of little importance provided that transparency and traceability are observed by everyone concerned."@en1
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