Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-25-Speech-3-219"
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"en.20050525.21.3-219"2
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".
Madam President, I wish to remind honourable Members of two facts. We are talking about health, the health of European citizens. We are talking at the same time of a marketing tool, of a means of making profit on the part of industry, voluntarily, without being obliged to do so. The industry chooses to use a health claim in order to sell a product. It is only logical that this claim should be based on science, should be accurate, truthful and correct. That is a very simple matter.
Finally, Madam President, I apologise for exceeding my speaking time and I would like to say that a complete list of the Commission’s position on all the amendments is available to Parliament. I would request that it be included in the record of this part
session.
It is one thing to say consumers should decide. Do we expect every single consumer to have a PhD in chemistry or in biotechnology, or to set up a little lab in their house so that they can analyse every claim and test it to see if it is accurate or not? That is impossible; it is ridiculous; it will not happen. That is why we must make sure that the industry that chooses to use this marketing tool carries out the requisite tests to ensure it is providing correct information. As I said earlier, nobody wants a nanny state, but in our efforts not to have a nanny state, we must not go to the other extreme and abandon consumers, allowing them to be bombarded with inaccurate or misleading information. The result will be exactly the opposite of what was intended: it will be that the consumer will not trust any claim. Consumers will ignore even truthful ones, even scientifically based claims, because they cannot choose between the good and the bad claim, the correct and the incorrect claim. Therefore the tendency will be – and you heard earlier from Mr Whitehead about the consumers’ position – for them to ignore all claims.
I am sure the industry does not want this. Yes, we support innovation, there is no question about that, but innovation based on science, not based on misleading information. We are not banning advertising. This is a misunderstanding and I have to make it clear that there is no question of banning advertising. We are concerned with the message the advertising contains. If it cannot be proved scientifically that a certain product helps health, the advertisement should just say the product tastes good, following the good old way of advertising a product. Not everything has to based on health claims if there is no scientific evidence for them.
Of course, a correct diet is good, but for consumers to decide their diets they have to have the right information. Regarding the list, I think again there may be a misunderstanding. The list is not an exclusive list, its aim is to harmonise. Therefore, claims that have been approved will be able to be used by everybody, which will help the smaller industries because they will be able to draw on the list and use it without having to go through the approval procedure themselves.
Regarding SMEs, when it comes to health they have the same obligations as the larger industries. We just have to make it easier for them to meet these obligations. I agree that we have to simplify the authorisation procedures, but that does not mean that SMEs can make a claim that is not correct.
There is no intention to withdraw this proposal; it is very important. We have an obligation to the European citizens, a responsibility towards them to maintain this level of consumer protection. What we are trying to do is to empower consumers so they can use information that is correct.
Nutritional profiles are important, they have to remain. They will help ensure that claims are accurate and do not mislead the consumer. Also, the authorisation procedure is very important. Notification is not enough. It would not offer the necessary consumer protection, nor would it offer fair competition in the industry. However, we can discuss simplifying the procedures to make it easier for smaller businesses to meet the authorisation requirements.
Article 11, on prohibited claims, can be softened. We can discuss which claims can be allowed and which ones not. There are a number of claims that could lead to an adverse effect, and they should not be allowed. But this is something which is open to discussion.
As for children, we all agree that there is a need to protect them. The question is whether this is the most appropriate legislation for doing so. We have other legislation, we have the directive on unfair commercial practices, which was approved recently. We also have non
regulatory procedures like the platform on obesity, which we launched recently. Through these legislative and non
legislative procedures we can offer protection to children. Applying this particular legislation to the protection of children would only complicate matters and not achieve the target."@en1
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