Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-17-Speech-2-020"
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"en.20021217.1.2-020"2
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"Mr President, we have read the detailed report on foot and mouth disease in Great Britain and elsewhere, but we believe that this disease broke out and spread as the natural consequence of a number of factors. The first factor is that animals and products of animal origin can be transported with complete freedom – or should I say unaccountability – throughout the world nowadays, thanks to the globalisation demanded by big business looking for ways to make a fast buck. The second factor is that cross-border veterinary checks on movements of livestock between Member States of the European Union have all but been abolished. This basically means that animals can move unchecked from one country to another, as can any dangerous diseases they may be carrying. This is compounded by a third factor, the abolition of government veterinary services, staff cutbacks and the generally scant importance attached to government control mechanisms, all as a result of the demand by big business for any controls to be minimised between or within countries which might obstruct the need for livestock to be moved quickly, together with the profit generated.
Finally, and this is not unrelated to what I have just said, there is the feed factor – with no controls whatsoever on feedingstuffs – which appears to have helped foot and mouth disease to spread. This is not a minor factor, as we know from previous crises in the livestock sector in the European Union, such as dioxins in poultry and bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
We are under no illusion that crises such as these, which threaten livestock and public health, will keep on happening as long as production is governed by the profit motive and the rules of production, movement, and trade imposed by multinational and other capitalist enterprises in the sector. Any structural or other measures taken will be no more than fragmented measures which work until the next crisis strikes. The only long-term solution which will not jeopardise the agricultural economy of the Member States or wipe out entire livestock holdings is to abolish capitalist profit from production and introduce adequate border and other controls, contrary to the demands of the multinationals which have managed to get them lifted."@en1
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