Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-05-Speech-4-050"
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"en.20080605.3.4-050"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with this report, we are making a contribution to cutting red tape. We have succeeded in making it clear that it is, and should be, possible to ease the burden associated with the implementation of HACCP criteria, especially for small businesses, without lowering or jeopardising our high hygiene standards.
A priority – as the Commissioner has already said – is to ease the burden associated with record-keeping. I would just like to remind you that these options were already available in the hygiene package which came into force in 2006. However, we have noted that following this paradigm shift in the area of hygiene, difficulties have arisen in the context of implementation.
It has always been the stated aim of Parliament and the Commission to preserve diversity of food production in a European Union of 27 Member States. It is only right and proper that small butchers' shops, for example, should be able to continue to operate in future too. However, the information that we have received from various countries is that in some regions, some small companies are finding economic survival increasingly difficult. That is why it is essential to draw attention to the flexibility built into the regulations and help it to become a reality. This – nothing else – is what we have emphasised clearly and unequivocally in this report.
Maintaining flexibility means that we mention the focus on small and medium-sized enterprises only in the recitals. This makes it possible, for example, for companies which have 11, not 10, employees, let us say, to benefit from favourable treatment so that they too can apply for the administrative burden to be eased: provided, of course, that they can prove that either there are no hazards or that identified hazards are sufficiently and regularly controlled. The report also emphasises that the food business operator is responsible for furnishing the proof that either there are no hazards that must be prevented, eliminated or reduced to acceptable levels, or that identified hazards are sufficiently and regularly controlled through the implementation of general and specific food hygiene requirements.
In 2006 we adopted a hygiene package which applies as it stands in the EU27. That is why I fail to understand the amendment tabled by Mrs Corbey, which states that it should be a matter for the Member States whether to allow any easing of burdens in HACCP implementation. This would create new subsidiarity scenarios, which was actually what we were trying to avoid with the Regulation; in other words, we do not want any distortions of competition. The adoption of Mrs Corbey's amendment would also conflict with the intentions of the Regulation itself: in other words, the regulation would conflict with itself. That is certainly not what we are trying to achieve!
The text adopted in committee is certainly acceptable, but it explicitly restricts the option of easing the burdens to small and medium-sized enterprises. The strong involvement of the authorities, too, is out of step with the principles of the Regulation. In the Regulations themselves, it is made very clear that food businesses have a responsibility to maintain good hygiene practice and must furnish proof that they are controlling any risks.
There have been repeated objections to the effect that a review of the regulations is due in 2009 so no new measures are needed now. I take issue with this view. By 2009 all food-producing companies must be licensed. Problems are likely to arise in this licensing process. This will trigger a debate and is likely to put at risk the survival of the small butchers I have already mentioned, for example. In fact, that was the starting point underlying the Commission's intention to bring forward this proposal. It is very important, therefore, for the European Parliament to send out a clear signal about the intention established in the relevant Regulation. This signal is sent out, first and foremost, to food companies and the regulatory authorities.
The European Parliament has a strong track record in cutting red tape, and should do so again now, by giving its seal of approval to these regulatory provisions."@en1
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