Brussels, 10/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The resignation, on Tuesday, of German Agriculture Minister Karl Heinz Funke (Social Democrat) and Health Minister Andrea Fischer (Greens) for the bad management of the mad cow crisis was welcomed as a "rational" gesture by Dagmar Roth Behrendt, spokesperson for consumer groups in the Socialist Group of the European Parliament. She hopes it will mark a new starting point in terms of redeployment of competence. In a press release, the MEP nonetheless said she feels that the two outgoing ministers have partly borne the guilt for errors committed by their predecessors (Seehofer and Borchert respectively), which, she said ironically, "resigned posthumously". Dagmar Roth-Behrendt believes that "sticking to the illusion of a BSE-free Germany was a grave mistake on the part of the Kohl government, and that Ministers Fischer and Funke simply passed it on". Germany, she feels, is wrong in turning a blind eye to the warnings made by the Commission and the European Parliament, preferring - both Federal Government and Länder - to point a finger at the United Kingdom stigmatised as the cause of all evils, while controls in Germany were far from perfect as a Commission report testifies.
"Regarding the mad cow crisis, since the end of the 1980s, arrogance and ignorance have reigned in Germany. The error of Ministers Funke and Fischer was to have missed the opportunity, in 1998, to take a radical turn", stresses the German Social Democrat for whom the current political crisis must now mark the kick-off for a fresh departure. "Whosoever continues to believe today that the legislation on consumer protection, human food and animal feed could continue to remain under the authority of the Minister of Agriculture is clinging to old structures and supports the continuation of a policy governed by the agriculture lobby", she states recalling the lessons learnt by the Union from the first mad cow crisis. "Under the pressure of the European Parliament's committee of inquiry, which had highlighted the considerable errors made on the part of Member States and the Commission in the management of the BSE crisis, the Commission created a separate directorate general for consumer protection policy and health protection, which brings together competences on food legislation, provisions relating to the health and feeding of animals and also on controls. It would be appropriate for Germany to draw the same lessons, at federal level and at the level of the Länder", she states.
On Wednesday, ecologist Renate Kuesnast was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Social Democrat Ulla Schmidt Health Minister.