Brussels, 07/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 7 June, after a fortnight of scientific investigations, the source of the E.coli contamination of the food chain in Germany has not yet been identified and EU Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli is urging the member states to calm down and avoid causing panic among consumers by spreading rumours and suspicions. He made this call for calm at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, but the damage has already been done and EU farm ministers will be examining compensation measures later on Tuesday for horticulturists and farmers suffering from the collapse of consumer confidence (see previous article). The MEPs expressed solidarity with the victims and many called for an in-depth investigation into what happened, along with compensation for the farmers and agriculturalists affected by the crisis and measures to restore severely damaged consumer confidence. The Commission pointed out that the EU early warning system was not at fault, but it did need improving.
“As we all know, the initial suspicion raised by the German authorities that cucumbers from Spain were the cause has not been confirmed by any tests results available. It is crucial that national authorities do not rush to give information on the source of infection which is not proven by bacteriological analysis, as this spreads unjustified fears in the population all over Europe and creates problems for our food producers who are selling products in the EU and outside of the EU” said John Dalli. “I have been repeating: our system works. We need to learn lessons as we go along. And I believe it is our responsibility to be flexible and to be fast in adjusting our processes and procedures to respond to this type of incident. I would like to stress again that the outbreak is limited geographically to an area surrounding the city of Hamburg. So, there is no reason as of today to take such measure at European level. In the light of this and also the steps towards the identification of the source, we consider any ban on any products as disproportionate.”
During the debate, the German authorities were accused by several MEPs of communication and coordination failures. Spanish MEPs accused them of being slow and bureaucratic and making false statements. Corinne Lepage (ALDE, France) said people should own up when they don't know everything and admit that the scientists are uncertain, and that they just do not know. She said one couldn't challenge people making decisions and say that they should wait and see, but should ensure the precautionary principle takes effect. Rebecca Harms (Greens, Germany) called for EU laboratories and a body centralised at European level to make the decisions. Peter Liese (EPP, Germany) said that people needed to concentrate on finding the source of the infection and tackling it and called for faster work on combating resistance to antibiotics (E.coli is resistant to antibiotics). (A.N./transl.fl)