Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-14-Speech-2-325"
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"en.20020514.14.2-325"2
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". – Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I should like to congratulate both Mr Schnellhardt and Mr Kindermann for their work. The opinion from the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Schnellhardt report, for which I was the draftsperson, focuses in particular on the need for consistency between food safety practices, which are deemed essential for the domestic sale or supply of foodstuffs, and those practices which cover the sale of such foodstuffs internationally. The committee has therefore sought to make it explicit that the scope of any regulation needs to apply equally to exports, as well as to domestic sale and consumption.
We also wanted to broaden the membership of the proposed standing committee for foodstuffs to include experts representing public authorities and consumer groups. It is quite wrong that the Commission Decision of 18 May 2000, which defines the composition of standing committees, specifically exempts consumer groups from representation on these committees. It is clearly of great importance that such committees gain the trust of consumers and are genuinely stakeholder committees. It therefore seems quite essential that consumer groups be represented on them.
With respect to the specific hygiene rules for food of animal origin, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy wanted to build in greater flexibility, particularly with regard to slaughterhouses. We therefore proposed that measures should be introduced to allow flexibility in application of the so-called HACCP system to regional slaughterhouses which are in peripheral or remote regions. Strict rules in the past have caused unnecessary difficulties to slaughterhouses in the more remote areas of the EU, often because geographical restraints can lead to unfair competitive conditions which tend to favour larger enterprises.
Yet, as we begin to learn the lessons of, say, the foot-and-mouth epidemic in the UK, it is quite clear that one of the reasons that disease spread so far and so fast was precisely because of the closure of local slaughterhouses. We must not induce, however unintentionally, any more closures in that vital area.
Finally, on a personal note, an existing concern I have with this whole regulation is that it is insufficiently flexible for the small enterprise in particular. We must be mindful of the extra burden which can be placed on small enterprises and ensure that we are not adopting any sort of regulation which risks undermining their livelihoods."@en1
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