Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-04-Speech-3-370"
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"en.20090204.20.3-370"2
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"Mr President, the Commission is fully aware of the high risks of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) for human health and the environment.
The Commission is placing increasing importance on the proper implementation of EU waste legislation, and is actively supporting Member States in enhancing the implementation of their national waste legislation.
The feed hygiene Regulation No 183/2005 lays down minimum requirements for feed hygiene which apply from the primary production of feed (at farm level), through the production, the processing and the distribution, to the point of feeding the animals.
Feed business operators (FBOs) should put in place, implement and maintain procedures based on the HACCP principles. This means the identification of critical control points and the identification of
possible chemical contamination when using the direct heating process to dry feed materials.
The responsibility for compliance with these requirements rests with feed business operators, although the adequacy of the measures put in place by FBOs must be verified by the competent authorities of the Member States. In most cases, this must be done by an on-the-spot visit.
Furthermore, general principles on the organisation of official controls laid down in the Official Control on Food and Feed Regulation require Member States to ensure that controls are carried out regularly, on a risk basis and with appropriate frequency. These official controls must include controls on feed businesses.
The role of the Commission is set out in Article 45 of the Official Control on Food and Feed Regulation (EC) No 882/2004. Commission experts carry out audits of the competent authorities in the Member States to verify that controls take place in compliance with Community law.
A general audit of Ireland under this article was carried out across a number of sectors in 2008 and a report will be available shortly. The list of establishments to be audited is jointly decided between the national competent authorities and the auditors from the FVO.
The plant mentioned in the question was not one of those subjected to inspection in the 2008 general audit.
In the Irish dioxin contamination incident, the use of contaminated breadcrumbs as animal feed was identified to be the source of contamination. The breadcrumbs were produced from bakery waste (out-of-date biscuits), which are dried using a direct heating process. In a direct heating process the combustion gases are in direct contact with the feed material to be dried. The fuel used was apparently contaminated with PCB transformer oil. The relevant responsibilities of the different actors, from the breadcrumb producer to the fuel supplier, and so on, will be identified by an ongoing legal investigation.
I would like to stress the major importance of a comprehensive approach to be adopted for the risk classification, which includes possible risks related not only to the nature of the incoming material, in this case breadcrumbs, but also to the process itself.
Incidents like those in Belgium in 1999, and in Ireland last year, have demonstrated once again that even small amounts of PCBs can cause severe contamination of the feed and food chain.
Over the past three decades, the EU has established legislation to decrease the release of PCBs and dioxins into the environment, with the objective of reducing human exposure and protecting human health and the environment.
Nevertheless, as equipment containing PCBs typically has a long life expectancy, even after the ban of PCBs in 1985 significant amounts remain in use and are one source of possible human exposure.
In particular, the Directive on the disposal of PCBs, Directive 96/59/EC of September 1996, provides the appropriate tools to ensure the disposal of equipment and waste containing PCBs as soon as possible, and for large equipment before the end of 2010.
However, there remain significant gaps in the full implementation of this legislation. The Commission had to launch infringement procedures against most Member States concerning the obligation to establish inventories of large PCB-containing equipment and PCB disposal plans.
As a result of these infringement procedures, the overall situation has improved. Currently only two such cases are still open, but are about to be closed.
All Member States have communicated their plans for the decontamination and/or disposal of inventoried equipment and the PCBs contained therein, and for the collection and subsequent disposal of equipment containing less than five cubic decimetres of PCBs (as required by Article 11 of the Directive).
Nevertheless, additional efforts are needed. In order to ensure the efficiency of PCB disposal plans, Member States have to further improve the implementation of existing legislation on PCBs and of European waste legislation in general."@en1
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