Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-25-Speech-3-217"
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"en.20050525.21.3-217"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when the Commissioner listed the advantages of this proposal just now – let me repeat them once more: a high level of consumer protection, facilitating the free movement of goods in the internal market, enhancing legal security for economic agents, creating fair competition in the food sector, promoting and protecting innovation in the field of foodstuffs, all laudable objectives – I nodded, because yes, that is quite right! But in the regulation this is to be achieved by restricting market principles, degrading citizens to sheep
like consumers and introducing a great deal of bureaucracy.
The basic approach of doing more to promote a healthy diet and lifestyle is something that I support unreservedly. We must take action here. But the proposed means of doing so is inappropriate; it does nothing more than create the opportunity for an alibi, enabling us, in a few years’ time, to say: ‘We did something. It didn’t help, but we can wash our hands of it’.
Restricting advertising to the point of banning it surely also flies in the face of a whole series of scientific and political arguments. The idea of prohibiting the making of such claims about the nutrient profile on particular foods goes against the principle of food science, according to which there are no good or bad foods, but only a good or bad diet.
Across all of its committees, Parliament has sought to reduce consumer nannying, observe market principles and cut red tape. The elimination of Article 4 is the core of or basis for these changes. It is high time that you in the Commission also had a radical rethink of your procedures. Let us concentrate on informing consumers; let us close loopholes in the law to put a stop to the dishonest practices of a few economic agents, and let us create a climate in which it is acceptable to strive for a healthy lifestyle, which in itself has to be presented differently to each individual generation. You cannot live without salt or sugar. Mrs Corbey, I heard your first comments and am very concerned about your lifestyle. Soon there will be nothing left that you can eat!
I should like to make another proposal, which could be a follow
up to yours. Why not determine human beings’ nutritional requirements on the basis of their body structure, with a computer chip inserted in the head, so that they can only go in certain directions in the supermarket and can only go to certain foods. That would be the epitome of consumer nannying, and then we would have only slim people in Europe. This is good advice I am giving you, so please take note of it!"@en1
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