Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-15-Speech-1-109"
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"en.20060515.16.1-109"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that Mrs Poli Bortone, with her report, is giving this House another dose of good sense and I rejoice in the hope that we will, tomorrow, get the green light and will at last be able to give consumer protection renewed impetus.
What is at issue today is the need for more honesty. Do we want to allow consumers to have excessively fatty, over-sweetened or over-salted foods palmed off on them by businesses that are then allowed to get away with boasting about the health benefits? Nobody wants to ban the sale of chips, coca-cola or sweets, but we cannot allow these foods to be sold on the pretext that they contribute to health and wellness. Nor are we talking in terms of bans on advertising, but only of new marketing rules. What we need is minimum standards that ensure honesty in marketing. Harmonised rules make for legal certainty and that is to the benefit of the businesses as much as of anyone else.
A survey revealed that 70% of consumers had confidence in the health-related claims made by manufacturers, and that is what makes this regulation a key piece of legislation, not only in terms of greater transparency in consumer protection, but also of improved health protection. At present, over 200 million adults and 14 million children in the European Union are overweight or suffering from obesity. There has been a dramatic increase in the incidence, especially among children, of diabetes II, which is attributable to nutritional factors. It is because we are facing the possibility of obesity and lack of exercise dislodging smoking from its statistical position as the number one cause of death that we regard this compromise as a good one, and as a good package. I would have liked to see more objectivity and greater honesty in this debate; in Germany alone, we are contending with nutrition-related problems that are costing us EUR 71 billion, and that makes clear that this is something we have to address.
I also hope that the German Federal Government will not act on Mrs Sommer’s suggestion and lodge an appeal; any government – not just the German one – that appealed against something after having agreed to it in the Council would make itself look ridiculous and lose credibility, and so I hope that tomorrow will see us achieving a milestone in our quest for more protection for consumers and for their health."@en1
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