March 12th, 2004
European Parliament votes new regulations on food and animal feed
MEPs voted this week by 287-194 (with 23 abstentions) to approve new EU rules on food inspections. The overall aim of the Regulation governing official controls on food and animal feed is to improve food safety ; MEPs laid special emphasis on the need also to reduce risks to animal health and welfare.
The European Parliament adopted amendments to the original Commission proposal stating that official inspections can take place without warning, on an ad-hoc basis, unless they are connected to an audit.
A controversial issue was that of criminal sanctions : The final text adopted leaves it to Member State governments to decide the rules on sanctions, but stipulates that they must be 'effective, proportionate and dissuasive'.
Also at issue were questions of confidentiality and transparency : MEPs insisted that relevant information held by the food and feed authorities should be made public as soon as possible. Confidentiality is also permitted, however, as the authorities have to ensure that no information is disclosed which may be covered by professional secrecy.
Other amendments dealt with the issue of costs. MEPs opted for a system allowing Member States to collect fees to cover the costs of inspections, but no more.
Although this is only the 1st reading in the codecision procedure, the Parliament has reached an informal agreement with the Council of Ministers, which should ensure that the Regulation is adopted before the European elections in June. The new rules would apply from January 2006.
Below are excerpts from Tuesday's debate in Strasbourg:
Commissioner Byrne: The Commission's proposal establishes rules on the organisation of official controls on feed, food and live animals to be respected by the Member States and it defines the tasks of the Commission's Food and Veterinary Office…Above all the proposal aims to improve the efficiency of controls undertaken by both the Member States and the Commission. It defines tougher enforcement measures. It also creates a framework to support developing countries in meeting important requirements and provides for a financial framework to organise activities that enhance food and feed safety.
Neil Parish MEP (Conservative, South West): We welcome the feed and food controls in order to ensure healthy animals and good meat for people throughout Europe…Animal welfare is also extremely important…We have to ensure that consumers can tell from the labelling which products have met those high animal welfare standards in Europe. Consumers should also be able to see from the labelling which products have not met those high standards.
The cost of inspection within the EU and fees charged to each feed company have to be looked at, because if one country is charging significantly more for inspections than another, it causes distortions throughout the single market. In broad terms, we must welcome these controls, but we have to be careful that we do not over-regulate.
Robert Goodwill MEP (Conservative, Yorkshire & Humber): I am also worried that once again we may be coming up against the law of unintended consequences. You may recall that when the original slaughterhouse regulations came forward, the UK Government got hold of them and goldplated them. This resulted in very high costs for some small slaughterhouses which, faced with those costs, closed. That then resulted in animals having to travel very large distances to slaughterhouses…
On the issue of 'naming and shaming', nobody could be against freedom of information - we are all in favour of transparency and openness - and not to be in favour of it would be to support secrecy. We need to be careful, for example, to look at the situation in the UK, where if you are prosecuted you appear in the paper, but if minor infringements are discovered, such as a cracked tile in a slaughterhouse or a piece of mouse dirt in a restaurant, this does not appear on the front page of the local newspaper.
Phillip Whitehead MEP (Labour, East Midlands): Mr Goodwill said that these measures have unintended consequences. I would remind him of the principle of 'unright time', according to which people always say that the time is not right for doing something. Well, it is high time to be doing what we are doing in this area.
…How far we can specifically assist developing countries in meeting EU standards. How are these standards going to be applied and what assistance are we able to offer? Most of all, how can we guarantee the system of prior notification for high-risk products at ports that have the necessary facilities to deal with them?…
Finally, I am particularly glad that we have reached some agreement on the issue of sanctions. Sanctions as originally proposed were unwise and would not have worked. I am pleased to say that the route we are now taking, which has been agreed by most of the main players, is likely to lead to success.
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