Brussels, 16/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - In its adoption (570 votes in favour, 63 against and 19 abstentions), on Tuesday 15 April, of the report by Marit Paulsen (ALDE, Sweden) on the proposed regulation on animal health, the European Parliament made considerable changes to the initial proposal to toughen the measures to fight animal disease and allow the EU to act swiftly and responsibly in the event of an emergency. The issue of cloning was not discussed.
The new provisions, as amended by the MEPs, clarify the responsibilities of farmers, traders and animal professionals, particularly veterinary surgeons and pet-owners: they must guarantee that their animals are in good health and prevent the introduction and spread of disease. The amendments lay greater emphasis on prevention. In order to promote the appropriate use of veterinary medicine, the MEPs propose that the member states pay particular attention to antibiotic resistance and improve access to professional training in this area when drafting their national plans for the prevention and control of infectious animal diseases. For example, veterinary surgeons must give farmers, traders and pet-owners appropriate explanations about how to use antibiotics responsibly. Under the text adopted, animal operators should be subject to visits to their premises to check the health of the animals and to stop emerging diseases from spreading throughout the EU. In order to fight diseases with a considerable impact on public health, agricultural production or animal health and well-being, such as bluetongue, African swine fever or avian influenza, the European Commission has been authorised to take emergency measures.
The legislation aims to stop infectious animal diseases, the rapporteur stressed. “70% of infectious diseases are common to humans and animals”, Paulsen pointed out. “There has to be free trade in agricultural products, but at the same time a control system which works properly”, she said. She added that it was vital to resolve the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Stray dogs. By January 2018, the member states must set in place obligatory registration systems for stray animals, which are often responsible for the spread of animal disease, the MEPs state.
Parasites: stricter rules on plant imports. The EP also adopted (478 votes in favour, 146 against and 24 abstentions) the report by Hynek Fajmon (ECR, Czech Republic) on protection measures against organisms that are harmful to plants (report on plant health). The EP is revising the current approach to imports of plants and plant products from third countries. The aim is to make the preventative measures more effective. The plenary maintained the Commission's proposal to maintain a blacklist of plants and plant products from certain countries or regions (whereas the parliamentary committee argued in favour of the creation of a positive list, in other words a list of countries and products which pose no serious threat to EU agriculture and which can be imported into the Union). Countries wishing to export plants to the EU must apply to the Commission, which will accept or reject the application in the light of various controls, particularly audits carried out on the ground, under the amendments voted on by the committee on agriculture of the EP.
These two texts are part of the animal and plant health package, which also contains a plank on seeds, which was rejected by the EP (see EUROPE 11016).
Checks. The EP adopted (565 votes in favour, 51 against and 29 abstentions) the report by Mario Pirillo (S&D, Italy) on checks in the food chain (see EUROPE 11024). He summed up the main elements of the text as follows: - checks must be carried out wherever there is a risk, in order to guarantee that products are healthy; - we have provided for certain expenditure related to the checks to continue to be born by private businesses; - we wanted to include reference centres for the authenticity and integrity of the food chain; - official checks can be unannounced (i.e. no advance notice necessary); - there are many new elements in the text and these correspond to consumers' wishes to obtain safe, quality products; - we wish to avoid cases of fraud (such as with the horse meat scandal). (LC)