Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-15-Speech-4-027"
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"en.20090115.2.4-027"2
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"Mr President, we are once again discussing the transport of animals in this House, and we will once again reach a two-fold conclusion. Firstly, current legislation is lagging far behind Parliament’s ambitions as set out in the report of my predecessor Albert Jan Maat, who, to my mind, was right to draw a distinction between animals intended for slaughter and other cattle. Indeed, steps have been taken in the area of training drivers, better transport conditions and the use of GPS, but these are certainly not enough.
Secondly, monitoring remains the Achilles’ heel of this legislation. Monitoring by Europe leaves something to be desired and is still very much organised at national level. There is an urgent need, therefore, for agreements on handling complaints and gathering evidence across borders. I should also like to see the Food and Veterinary Office step up its monitoring efforts. My amendment to make more funds available for this in the budgetary procedure has been rejected by
the European Commission. Even now, the European Commission refers to national reports which it will be assessing on paper. Would the European Commission prefer to wash its hands of this matter than to guarantee actual European-wide monitoring
inspections by European inspectors and European supervision?
Other improvements that need to be made to current legislation are: more and better-equipped resting places within the European Union and beyond, more specific climate conditions for the different animal species and, finally, we have to start working on the compulsory use of satellite systems, with access by authorised personnel to a central database.
Despite an incomplete European overview of the actual implementation of this legislation, we do, of course, pick up certain rumours, from Austria for example, where a local inspector reportedly sees many empty lorries drive in the direction of Poland and the Czech Republic, for example, but he does not see the full vehicles returning, heading towards southern Europe. Does this mean that, once these lorries are full, they decide to make a detour around Austria, perhaps to avoid the stricter monitoring rules that are in place there in comparison with the surrounding countries? For me, that is an indication that the legislation is being applied very differently by the Member States.
Another problem is the role of the vets who need to sign for transport. Commissioner, in some cases, these vets have become nothing but stamp machines. Surely nobody in their right mind could sign off a transport schedule for horses from Romania to southern Italy that was due to last 24 hours? The last 500 km of this transport would, according to the transport schedule, take 2.5 hours. This makes you wonder whether these animals were to be transported in a Ferrari.
Finally, young animals, particularly puppies, for example, are now being ferried across the whole of Europe without there being any legislation in place. I would therefore like to urge the European Commission to look into this.
We have done our homework in this House; we are now looking forward to the Commission proposals that we expect before the forthcoming elections for this House."@en1
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