Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-06-Speech-3-115"
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".
The report on the basic technical principles for monitoring BSE tackles the right issues in the right way. We agree with the proposals addressing the principle of prevention and the proposals containing a final definition of terms and concepts, which will prevent the same issues from being interpreted differently in the Member States, given that the current lack of clarity is delaying the application of legislation. We also agree with the principle of zero tolerance as regards even traces of dioxins in food and animal feed and the ban on the use of the bones of one species of animal in the feed for the same species of animal.
However, we have acute reservations on a number of other points in the report. For example, although we do not disagree with the proposal on reforming the common agricultural policy per se, what worries us is that the Commission may use it to cut back on subsidies or the production of basic agricultural products. This has already happened with cotton, using high nitrate levels and environmental protection as a pretext, and with tobacco, using the anti-smoking campaign and the protection of public health as a pretext.
We likewise disagree with the proposal to give the Community services more powers of control, because we feel that they have yet to prove that they are more sensitive or more efficient than the national authorities in this sector. The repeated cases of dioxins in chickens, mad cows etc., which are only discovered with hindsight, to the detriment of public health, confirm our reading and justify our opposition to any increase in Community powers.
Finally, we should like to point out that, as long as reducing production costs, no matter how, and increasing the profits of the huge monopolies in the sector continues to be the primary and decisive criterion for producing which agricultural products and food, the problems will not only not go away, they will multiply. Any controls, especially preventive controls, however important, cannot reverse these trends, as the fact that most problems are identified with hindsight, once they have taken on tragic proportions and caused massive public health problems, goes to show.
That is why we believe that we cannot achieve complete food safety with communications and resolutions, however progressive they may be, because they cannot and will not touch capitalist methods of production.
We support the report and controls to restrict these problems, albeit critically; at the same time, we must point out that we shall only have complete food safety if the basic criterion for producing food is consumer protection, animal protection and environmental protection, rather than the profit motive."@en1
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