Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-11-Speech-2-290"
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"en.20011211.13.2-290"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report has progressed very well. The Commission and the Council adopted most of what Parliament requested at first reading. Now, the user stage of the directive’s application is, for example, being included, and we have obtained a generic term so that we know what we are talking about. All products intended as animal nutrition are now defined by a common term in all animal feed legislation.
It is very good that the important rules on, for example, the ban on dilution are now being implemented. This means that a batch containing unduly high levels of, for example, dioxin may not be taken and diluted with something else so that it comes within the limits. Personally, I think it is excellent that we have incorporated what are called action thresholds into the directive. That, ladies and gentlemen, is in practice the precautionary principle. It means that if, for example, a dairy discovers that the level of mycotoxin, a mould poison, is increasing in its milk, an investigation can be launched, in spite of the fact that the limit above which the substance becomes hazardous has not yet been exceeded. An investigation can then be begun into why the level of mycotoxin is increasing in the milk, and preventative measures can be adopted further back in the chain before the limit has been reached beyond which there is a danger of poisoning.
The Council has accepted everything, except in relation to an issue which we in the committee have now been forced to re-address, namely that of whether or not unsuitable batches of feed should be returned to, for example, the Third World. The committee and I believe it is profoundly immoral simply to pass on in that way products which do not fulfil the requirements of the directive. We do not know in such cases where the products will end up, whether they will be used in the poorest areas or whether they will simply return to our own market in another guise. The committee therefore chose to table amendments which remove this option of re-export. We also chose to retain a transitional period of six months following the directive’s entry into force.
Subsequently, the Commission and the Council came and offered negotiations under the Belgian Presidency. We tried to reach a compromise and, in fact, did so. I would thank both the Belgian Presidency and the Commission for the excellent and constructive way in which they have cooperated with me and my co-rapporteurs on this issue.
We agreed on a compromise solution according to which re-export was to be regulated in the same way as in the general food law which we have today voted through Parliament with a very large majority. This solution is a technical way of plugging a time gap so that, when the general law comes into force, the provisions of this law will apply to re-export in accordance with this directive. It is not, then, a new proposal but is concerned with bridging a particular period of time. The compromise amendment we tabled has exactly the same wording as in the Whitehead report.
This evening, when everything was ready, we learned however that the Council did not want to accept this compromise. I realise with deep regret that we have to withdraw our compromise proposal and are thus forced into a conciliation. I want to say to the Council of Ministers that this is purely and simply a misuse of the conciliation institute. This is not such a complex and serious dispute that we should need to go so far, but my co-rapporteurs and I find the situation such that Parliament is compelled to draw attention to it. When five political groups sign a compromise, then we are serious about it."@en1
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