Brussels, 15/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - The use of meat and bone meal in fish feed, which had been banned in the European Union after the mad cow disease crisis, will once more be authorised as of 1 June this year (see EUROPE 10786), giving rise to criticism within the European Parliament and from the French government. Germany was also opposed to easing the embargo on meat and bone meal.
As of 1 June 2013, farmed fish and other aquaculture animals may once more be fed with pig and poultry protein, the European Commission announced on Thursday. Member state experts had approved the measure in July 2012. Purely by chance, this decision comes just at a time when a food scandal on horsemeat replacing beef in processed foods sold in Europe is in full swing. It was because of this that Guillaume Garot, France's deputy minister for agri-foods, was particularly critical. “Yes, it falls at a bad time”, the minister said in response to questions put to him on France Info, calling for the sector's industry to show responsibility.
France is opposed to the provision.
Garot said France had taken a stance against the European measure. Underlining that the Commission's provision “fortunately” did not make the use of meat and bone meal compulsory, he said that the measure, when implemented in France, should be according to a true spirit of responsibility on the part of the food industry.
According to the Commission, the use of processed animal proteins will improve the long term sustainability of the aquaculture sector, as the animal proteins could be a valuable substitute for fish meal, which is a rare resource. The health risk, it said, would be minimal. According to the most recent scientific opinions, the Commission said, the risk of BSE (Ed.: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) transmission between non-ruminant animals is negligible as long as there is no recycling between species (cannibalism).
Final phase of BSE eradication.
Meat and bone meal had been banned in the European Union in 1997 for ruminants in the wake of the mad cow disease crisis. The BSE epidemic is said to have originated from the use of such meal in cattle feed. The ban had then been extended, in 2001, to feed for all farm animals intended for human consumption. Furthermore, the Commission plans to authorise - but not before 2014 - the use of processed animal proteins in pig and poultry feed. It will remain banned, however, for feed used for ruminants - cattle, sheep and goats. The Commission underlines, moreover, that the EU is now in the final stage of BSE eradication within its cattle population.
Joseph Bové calls for boycott on farmed fish.
On 6 July 2011, an overwhelming majority of French MEPs had voted, in Strasbourg, against the reintroduction of meat and bone meal (56 against including Stephane Le Foll, now Agriculture Minister, 8 votes for and one abstention).
Bové, the deputy chairman of the European Parliament agriculture committee, said that, although, at sea in the natural food chain, big fish eat little fish, one has never seen fish tackle pigs or poultry. If animal meat and bone meal is introduced in feed, there is nothing to prevent meal being used for animals for which it is not intended. Fish, like pigs and poultry tomorrow, must be labelled, he said, to show that they have been fed with, or without, bone meal so that the consumer can choose in full knowledge of the facts. Bové doubts that consumers will be rushing to buy fish labelled “fed with meat and bone meal”. He calls on the French government to urge the European Commission to suspend its authorisation, saying that, if the European bodies do not agree to do so, then he calls on consumers to be prepared to boycott farmed fish as of 1 June 2013.
Isabelle Thomas (S&D, France) explains that the French Socialist delegation at the Parliament is shocked by the European Commission's announcement yesterday that animal proteins would again be authorised for use in fish feed. “Unfortunately”, she said (our translation throughout), “the European Parliament's vote making it an obligation for discards to be offloaded and authorising their processing into meat and bone meal was in the aim of providing feed for aquaculture. This kind of feed had been prohibited in the European Union since the mad cow disease crisis. You don't need to have much more sense than an oyster to understand that this is detrimental to the perception that the public has of Europe. We call on the Commission to go back on the decision immediately”. (LC/transl.jl)