Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-12-Speech-2-298"
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"en.20020312.12.2-298"2
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"Mr President, this is a bad directive. I do not say that on the basis of any emotion or the fact that Doctor Rath has lobbied me. Oddly enough I have not received many e-mails, so my machine has not been stuffed full of e-mails from Doctor Rath or anybody else. I do not know why that is, but I am very quick with the delete button.
I do believe this is a very bad directive, not in its intention but in its method. It is designed, as everybody has said, to bring about a common market in food supplements. It may well bring that about, but in doing so the risk is – and there is a risk – that some products currently on the market in some countries will cease to be available.
I, like many British MEPs, have received many letters from people in the region that I represent. These are not circular letters that they have just signed, they are letters that they have written themselves. The people who write them fear that they will no longer be able to buy over 300 food supplements that their good health depends on.
We do not need to go into why this fear has arisen and who stirred it up, if anybody has stirred it up. The fact of the matter is that the Commission has created a situation, by bringing forward the directive in this form, that has given people reason to voice and to have such fears. I have no quarrel with the German Members or with the rapporteur. She has done a valiant job. They are standing up for the system they have in place. They believe our – British, in this instance – more liberal system may allow unsafe products onto the market. We contend that consumers should be able to exercise as wide a choice as possible and that there is no evidence that products on our market are unsafe. Where is the evidence that they are unsafe? Why should we have to prove that they are safe when people buy them every day and believe that their health depends on them?
I say to Commissioner Byrne: be careful. This directive tries to reconcile very different national approaches to allowing these products onto the markets and it fails in that attempt at reconciliation. Small businesses have been allowed too little time to submit the required safety dossier on their products. We may put that right tomorrow, but why, Commissioner Byrne, is it that there is no cost impact assessment on small businesses in this directive? When it came forward two years ago there was no cost impact assessment attached.
Just as important, we need to have the whole process of reviewing what there is on the market much more out in the open. It should not be done by secret committees. MEPs on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy will insist that we are much better informed on this, so that we can keep track of what is happening on behalf of our anxious constituents. We hope that we will be able to block any heavy-handed attempt to deprive people of the products they know and continue to need."@en1
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