Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-12-Speech-2-042"

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"Mr President, our rapporteur has done an excellent job and I should like to congratulate him on behalf of my group. However, I do have a few comments to make. I do not think we seriously appreciated just how complicated the circumstances culminating in the scandals which have resulted in today's debate on this new legislation were. We did not seriously evaluate the attitude towards events and developments on the part of senior politicians, technicians and technocrats and high-level departments in the Member States, with their silence, their cover-ups, their misunderstandings, their failure to act and their calculated recourse to free trade. Have we forgotten all this? All this has been noted in Parliament's reports and we need to counter it with strong political intervention, with common objectives, common measures and a common policy. And in today's debate you are taking a few steps forward by adopting a few principles and introducing a service. This service is not an authority, it is a sort of intergovernmental consultancy service. Rather than the food "Interpol" which we wanted, all we shall have is advisors. It is not a bad thing, but it does not amount to much. In any event, it is in keeping with the intergovernmental nature of the Union. However, when it comes to international trade and free trade, then the discussion becomes somewhat obscure. It is not just a question of what we export, it is also a question of what we import when it comes to food safety. We have not yet approved the convention on biosafety and cannot therefore legally counter free trade arguments by citing the principle of prevention without being under constant threat of being taken to the World Trade Organisation. Unless I am mistaken, we are shortly due to debate meat containing hormones from the United States. So all this restricts the role of the service under discussion. Despite which, it will be a valuable service. But we need to ensure that it has an opinion, its own opinion, and that it is able to provide information and publish its opinion even when no-one asks for it, especially when it disagrees with those in charge of managing the risks. This could bring a breath of fresh air by improving discussion and public information and will, I think, make those who want a repeat performance of what happened during previous scandals think twice. However, I have one reservation. What will this service be able to do in relation to its national counterparts and in relation to the action programmes introduced to deal – God forbid – with the next crisis which comes along?"@en1

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