Speech by Emma Bonino, MEP

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted by this invitation from the »Foreign Policy Centre to speak at this conference on » New Visions for Europe .

I have read the four pledges contained in the appeal drafted by the organisers with great care, in particular their desire to identify the ways in which, in an immediate future characterised by globalisation, »we will make Europe a force for good in the world .

The true challenge that globalisation poses for world leaders is that of governance. A duty which is presently complicated by the fact that while the traditional range of action of governments (political and administrative affairs) continues to be limited by national frontiers, all the main challenges regard players who already act at a global level.

It seems to me - though what follows is more an observation than a vision - that today's national governments are trapped between the demands of the so-called civilised society (demands that may be global in scope, such as the protection of the environment, the struggle against poverty and food security) and the demands of what I would call the uncivilised society, that which has already learned to globalise the main criminal activities - drug-trafficking, money-laundering, the disposal of toxic waste, and so on - and now constitutes a threat to international security.

National government are no longer self-sufficient. Globalisation calls for global governance. From this point of view, I believe that we Europeans are less unfortunate than others, and that we can be proud of the EU institutions and the process of integration, because it has anticipated the needs of the times : it has responded, that is, to the need for governance which is more and more global and less and less bound by frontiers.

The organisers of this debate are perfectly aware of all this, and set themselves the objective - which I fully share - of reconciling the epoch-making changes brought about by globalisation with the safeguard of the values, principles, political traditions and lifestyles that are common to the peoples of Europe.

What is the way forward ? Other panels have discussed the theoretical and institutional aspects of this issue : with respect to which I would like to remind you, in passing, of my federalist convictions. But since I am here to talk about quality of life, I will focus on the issue of food security within the European Union - an issue which literally exploded in the five years I spent as European Commissioner responsible for consumers and their health.

On the other hand, would it not be true to say that good, healthy food is one of the fundamental requirements in terms of the quality of life ?

The recent crises or scandals such as BSE or the more recent dioxin contamination have called into question the very safety of food. The fall-out from such events can have grave consequences. And I know from first hand experience just how important and far reaching these consequences are.

The citizen's confidence in European or national authorities and even in scientists to make sure that food in Europe is safe is undermined. Economic growth, employment and competitiveness in the European agro-food industry is threatened. And the functioning of the Single market is called into question.

Restoring public confidence is our challenge. And it is a very formidable challenge. Ensuring that our food is safe is our responsibility. Health and consumer protection are crucial to the everyday life of Europe's citizens. Failure to address public concerns over food safety is very dangerous. One has only to look at the most contentious issues to cross the Commission's desk in recent years. BSE, GMOs, growth-promoting hormones in beef, antibiotic residues, dioxin etc. have all taken up a huge amount of time and political energy.

The Commission has announced its intention to bring forward a White Paper on food safety whose aims are three fold : to modernise the existing legislation ; to increase the capability of EU scientific advice system to respond rapidly and effectively ; to reinforce controls » from stable to table .

Very good intentions. But let's have a closer look at these different issues.

Admittedly, food legislation lacks overall coherence and it must be brought up to date. The European Union disposes of an enormous body of legislation (more than 100 basic directives) on agricultural products and processed food.

It is a body of legislation which evolved with time, led by the objective of the creation of the single market and the common agricultural policy. For this reason in 1997 a Green Paper on Food Law identified the need for a major review of food legislation. We need to streamline and modernise our food law. We need a single, coherent, body of legislation.

Food law must cover the whole food chain, "from farm to fork", including animal feed production. It should also include the promotion of safe food practices at produce or consumer level and the promotion of a healthy diet and healthy eating habits.

It needs to be flexible, so it can easily be kept in line with advancing scientific knowledge, new production techniques and the discovery of new health hazards. This implies that primary Community legislation should also allow quick technical adaptation by the Commission.

A coherent legislation should also identify and eliminate existing loopholes and gaps. The recent dioxin crisis and the scandal of sewage sludge have highlighted such gaps which need to be addressed such as :

The limited possibility for the European Union to take safeguard measures to respond rapidly to an emergency situation in the food or feed chain.

The absence of set, acceptable, limits for the majority of environmental contaminants which may be present in food and feed.

For the time being, the feed sector is still much less regulated on European level and probably also on national level than the next steps in the food production chain. Difficult to understand why the feed industry is subjected to less requirements and controls than the food sector.

A point for reflection is how to give more responsibility to the feed producers. Auto-control and good manufacturing practices should be introduced also for this sector. I consider that the plough to plate approach starts with the feed!

But before embarking on new legislation, we should first sit down and reflect. I would support an intense dialogue with the industry, consumers and the responsible authorities in order to bring light into the current practices. A good dialogue in the beginning about what consumers want and what the industry can deliver at which price is the starting point for setting up a framework.

Consumers are asking for more transparency and more control. As far as transparency is concerned, they are running into open doors. Already in the aftermath of the BSE crisis, the Commission has acted in a very determined way, transparency has been the guiding principle of our work. All inspection reports and all scientific opinions are publicly available on the Internet. In this case we have even decided to present to Member States and to you the draft inspection report before Belgium had the possibility to make comments. On hot issues press releases were published at every step of the risk management process.

The Amsterdam Treaty makes the right to information a more formal right for consumers. Information is especially important in the internal market: Consumers in all the Member States, but also the responsible authorities in the Member States must have trust that the control in the country of origin works properly.

Another question is the enforcement of Community law: We have already seen during the BSE crisis, that Member States do not even apply the existing legislation. This is why the Commission in the meantime has opened infringement procedures against many Member States.

We have to fill loopholes and to scrutinise, critically, some of our old inspection techniques in order to make controls more efficient.

Food legislation is useless unless it is correctly implemented, controlled and enforced. Currently, food control is conducted at three different levels: by the industry, by member-States and by the European Commission through the Food and Veterinary office (FVO).

The Union has the FVO. However, what is still lacking is the legal base to inspect in all different sectors involved, such as the feed production chain. We said we would control from the stable to the table and, as I said before, this includes the feed sector. By the time I was in charge of food security, the Commission asked both the Parliament and the Council to get this competence. I hope that the process will now be accelerated for the adoption of this important legal instrument.

The EU veterinary inspectors can inspect and report. They do this together with the responsible authorities of the Member States. On the basis of inspection reports, the Commission can ask Member States to act in a certain way, or ultimately open infringement procedures. The inspectors are veterinarians; they are not a police. The European Union is a union of law. It lives with the will of the Member States to accept and apply the Community law, which they have given themselves.

Another subject of discussion has recently been the so-called rapid alert system for food that is supposed to help the Union in facing food security emergencies. Via this system the Commission can only inform the Member States when it is informed that a particular problem exists. We suppose that we only see the tip of the iceberg. A revision of its legal base is under way. I think that we should extend the rapid alert system for food also to cover all feed and food chain.

In addition, it remains difficult for certain sectors to act rapidly at Community level in case of food emergency ; we need a single and comprehensive instrument to adopt resrictive measures for all feed end food.

Having said that, I firmly believe that a rigorous food safety policy is also in the interests of European farmers and processors. They have paid a heavy economic price arising from the BSE and the dioxin crises. They deserve a food safety policy which will ensure that their interests as farmers and producers as well as consumers are promoted to the full.

The food industry also has a huge interest in restoring consumer confidence to the full. After all, they are among the biggest potential losers in the event of problems with food safety. Years of hard work, goodwill and valuable brand names can be lost overnight through a combination of carelessness, bad luck or misadventure.

I am also aware of the concerns of the industry that the issue of food safety is sometimes exaggerated. After all, I am being told, food has never been safer, the incidence of foodborne diseases has never been lower, and choice and price have never before been so favourable. There are very strong arguments that all this is true. But, frankly, industry has performed poorly in conveying this message to the public. We all have lessons to learn from recent events.

Increased competition and price constraints imposed on food manufacturers have caused the food industry to react by reducing costs and intensifying its production processes.

Quality controls have developed and spread in the food industry over the years but we are, now, in a situation where food production is much more integrated and complex than ever before. Industry is using a multiplicity of raw materials and many companies operate all along the chain from the farm to the consumer. All this, coupled with a wide geographic distribution of foodstuffs, means that the carelessness of some or the dishonesty of others, may seriously endanger the health of a vast number of consumers.

Recent surveys revealed that much less than 50 % of European households considered "that food manufacturers were telling them the whole truth about the safety of their products".

This perception is regrettable; because consumers should not have to worry about the safety of the food presented to them.

Consumers should be able to take for granted that industry and public authorities have done everything to guarantee that the food they buy is safe. Food safety, sustained by safe practices at industry level and vigilance at the level of public authorities, should be the norm.

I fully appreciate that zero risk is not achievable, like in most other human activities. We all must be nevertheless determined to contribute to establishing food safety as a basic principle for the operation for the food industry in Europe, on which consumers can rely.

We will only succeed if industry and public authorities at national or European level co-operate closely, each of them taking their part of responsibility and doing their work at their level.

Let me say, before concluding, some words on the ongoing discussions about a centralised European food agency, following the example of the US Food and Drug Administration. This is not a new discussion. The Commission has already discussed it during the BSE crisis - and has decided against it. So I do not understand, why we restart to discuss the same question again. The shortcomings in the management of the dioxin crisis were not on European level! On the contrary, the Commission responded in a very rapid and decisive manner to the crisis and Member States backed its actions.

The present control system is based on the principle of subsidiary: In a first step, we have the auto-control of agricultural and industrial operators. In a second step, Member States are responsible for checking that this auto-control works. They do it via on-the-spot checks, but they also control the products that are on the market. In a third step, the Commission is responsible for monitoring that Member States properly fulfil this task and that Community legislation is applied.

This is currently been done by 100 veterinary and phytosanitary inspectors in the Food and Veterinary Office. Until 1997, we had approximately 40 inspectors. Thanks to the European Parliament, the final number of 120 inspectors will be reached.

If all actors on every level of this control system act in a responsible manner, this system works and we can do with 120 inspectors on European level. Recently we have calculated that if EU inspectors checked all the approved establishments only once a year the Commission would need approximately 1.400 inspectors ! Do we want that? The US Food and Drug Administration has about 9000 officials and only for the food sector, as the veterinary control depends from other two agencies. Do we want such a new institution on European level? We, in the European Parliament, we can only imagine such a new body only if it brings a real added value and if it guarantees the present degree of democratic control and accountability.

Should an agency consist of a core group with expertise drawn from the Member States? If it is from the national agencies, I am not sure that its independence and expertise would be greater than the system set up by the Commission two years ago. Should we be looking towards an agency with its own decision powers? This goes against the Treaty. Only the Parliament, the Council and the Commission can adopt legislation.

If we have an agency, it will also be hampered by insufficient legal bases. Or would Member States give an agency all the powers they up to now refused to give to the Commission? Do not forget that an agency would be less accountable to the Parliament, while the Commission is totally accountable to the other Community institutions.