Brussels, 01/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - Speaking before the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday evening, Commissioner David Byrne did not conceal his fear about the lightning progress of the spread of foot and mouth disease. According to the latest checks, the disease has broken out in 27 places in the United Kingdom (with one in Northern Ireland). These areas were immediately declared contaminated areas and all human and animal movements were banned. Mr Byrne presented the latest developments in this new crisis and stressed several "worrying" aspects of the epizootic: - the disease has been detected in several counties of Great Britain and is said to be gaining ground according to a widespread geographical distribution; - the disease has been detected not only on farms but also in slaughterhouses and at sales points.
Gordon Adam (PES, UK) and Danielle Auroi (Greens/ALE, France) questioned the Commissioner on the possibility of setting a vaccination campaign in place. Mr Byrne replied that, even if the Union had 30,000 tonnes of serum ready for use, the European non-vaccination policy, decided in 1991, has proved its worth: only a few centres of outbreak were declared in Italy in 1993 and in Greece in 1996. In addition, cases also appeared in Bulgaria and Russia in 1993 and, in 1996, in Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Turkey. Mr Byrne justified this strategy with the same economic arguments that prevailed in 1991: - safeguarding its status as "foot and mouth free", according to the criteria of the International Organisation of Epizootics (IOE), would allow the Community to preserve its outlets on the world market. Also, it would allow, without the cost of vaccination, saving the additional cost of over one billion euros for European farmers". Regarding the question of compensation to stockfarmers, raised by the Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf (Greens, Germany) and by Phillip Whitehead (PES, UK), the Commissioner explained that a credit line of EUR 50 million is earmarked for this.
David Byrne drew MEPs' attention to the "speculation" by certain media which attribute the original spread of the disease to "shortcomings in controls of imports and to the intensive nature of European production". He specified, in answer to James Nicholson (EPP-Ed, Britain), in particular, that the structure and the lack of local slaughterhouses (which means long journeys to slaughterhouses increase the risk of infection) would not necessarily explain the appearance of centres of infection. Addressing British Conservative Neil Parish and British Labour member Neena Gill he said that any third country with a problem of foot and mouth does not have the right to export its products to the Union, and that all exports of food products must be accompanied by a certificate providing proof of the foot and mouth free status of the exporting country. The Commissioner noted that the Member States towards which the United Kingdom has exported potentially contaminated animals are: Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium.