Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-04-19-Speech-4-550-000"
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"en.20120419.22.4-550-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am particularly concerned about knowing the origin of products, because I think consumers should not be left in a state of confusion, which is definitely important.
Allow me to explain: in Italy we have a food culture that everyone is well aware of and we Italians often spend the weekends touring the countryside getting to know local products. Now, can you imagine how bad it would be for an Italian to arrive at a farmhouse restaurant to see goods with a well-known retail brand being unloaded from a refrigerated lorry? Let us now imagine that these goods were produced two kilometres away from the farmhouse. At this point, the unwitting consumer would leave confused, never to return there. The manager of the farmhouse would suffer, though maintaining in good faith that he had not done anything wrong. No court would accept a claim of food fraud, because no rule has been breached.
In an economy like Europe’s, we cannot accept absurd situations like the one I have just described, because I think a regulation is needed, above all, to try and harmonise the system. In order to protect consumers and small farming and rural tourism businesses, I think we ought to provide a clear and precise definition of what local production means, which would apply across Europe. This is especially pertinent when talking about food, which is an issue particular dear to us, including in safety terms. Here it is not enough to apply by analogy the rules in force in other sectors.
If I want to sample a local cheese, it is not enough that the final major processing phase is carried out locally, and we are fighting for this in other sectors as well. Rather, the animal that provided the milk for the product must have grazed on the grass of nearby fields. It must then have been milked
so that the animal did not have to go through any wearying journeys and the cheese must have been produced following absolutely strict rules.
That is what we want for our consumers."@en1
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