Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-05-Speech-4-016"
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"en.20020905.1.4-016"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, high-quality food is produced nowadays and it has to meet a wide range of requirements. An enormous variety of food is on offer, including food from widely varying countries outside the European Union. Our guiding principle should continue to be that our food should be safe and of a high quality, in order to ensure that consumers are protected. Food is the most basic prerequisite for people's health and quality of life.
Nevertheless, past scandals have unsettled and frightened consumers enormously. For example, I find it irresponsible that dishonest pharmaceutical companies should dispose of hormone products through animal feed and food, turning consumers into walking rubbish bins. I find it absolutely horrifying that metroxyprogesteronacetate is present in sugar syrup and soft drinks! I would like to ask, Commissioner, what legal steps have now been taken to prevent this recurring in the future.
I welcome the new European Food Safety Authority as an early warning system for Europe and as an efficient crisis management system coordinated between the Commission and the Member States. I am, however, concerned that the EU's controls should work properly. The network should be extended to provide better information and the reporting obligation for companies should be brought in as quickly as possible so that goods and products are withdrawn from the market if they are harmful.
What has the Commission done in the meantime to implement this, and to ensure greater transparency and traceability? We need to protect consumers, and that applies to imports as well. That is why I believe it is a matter of urgent necessity to introduce control systems for food as quickly as possible in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe too, including those cases where food is already produced in accordance with European standards. However, to allow consumers to decide for themselves what they want, we need to ensure that we have practical and clear labelling both for conventionally produced food and for genetically modified food. I firmly believe that we need to set the course for this as soon as possible."@en1
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