Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-16-Speech-2-276"
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"en.20031216.6.2-276"2
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"Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs on having produced very good reports. I want to state at the beginning that I totally support the view put forward by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on homeopathic medicine. However, as the report I want to deal with tonight is on prescription-only medicine, those are probably the only pleasant comments I will make tonight.
Is this something you really want to take forward? Both Mr Sturdy and Mrs Doyle asked whether this should not have come forward in separate legislation. Surely common sense, somewhere, some time, must prevail, even within the European Commission. Surely! You must listen to what people are saying and the concerns that they have. Is this not, once again, total interference in the internal affairs of people within their own nation state? When will you ever learn?
I wish to speak on prescription-only medicine because it will have a tremendous effect on my constituency in Northern Ireland. We have an efficient, workable, effective system of agricultural merchants. Mr Sturdy and Mrs Doyle have said that they have the same system in their own areas as well. It works, is effective and does not need to be scrutinised in this way. It has done that for centuries. What harm has ever been done by those agricultural merchants?
All you will do, Commissioner, is drive this trade into the black market. You will drive it underground. You will drive people to sell on the black market, under the counter. That is all you will do and that is what you have done in many other policies, from fishing to every other area in the European Union. The European Union and the Commission are not listening to what the people on the ground are saying. That is what you must do.
I know that this is essentially a UK, Irish and perhaps also a Dutch problem. But we have that problem. And you have to reflect on what we are doing. I am amazed by the dictatorial attitude that has come forward from the Commission and indeed from some Member States that want their own way at all costs: get what you want, regardless of the rest! This sends out the wrong message. In my opinion that is not what Europe is all about. Europe is about much more than this. Europe can be much more than this. You will deserve what you get, in the longer term, when they start to go underground.
I urge this House to support the amendment put forward by Mrs Doyle and others. That is the way forward. I hope, Commissioner, that you will reflect upon that, go back to your college of Commissioners and say that this has to be looked at again. You must be flexible. You must allow for what has been handed down and what works in certain areas at this moment in time. Do not force decent, honest people to go underground; do not force them into the black market.
I am terribly unhappy that the United Kingdom Government is backing out and not supporting its industry through Coreper. It is chickening out of the situation. It says it is going to do it by the back door, which will end up placing a tremendous responsibility on farmers and many other people in my constituency and other areas. Once again I ask you to support the amendment put forward by Mrs Doyle and the rest of us, as a way forward."@en1
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