Strasbourg, 14/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption on Tuesday in Strasbourg of the two reports by Swedish Liberal Marit Paulsen on the processing and elimination of certain animal by-products presenting health risks (mainly BSE-related), the European Parliament strengthened, at first reading (codecision), the European Commission's proposals to take into account the possible lifting, in 2002, of the suspension on using bone and meat meal in animal feed. Most of the amendments were accepted by Commissioner David Byrne.
The more ambitious report (adopted by 495 for, 10 against and 17 abstentions) concerns a proposal for a regulation of 19 October 2000 providing for the ban on recycling in the food chain of certain products of animal origin, namely animal carcasses and animal by-products not intended for human consumption. We recall that the Commission provides for classification of by-products into three distinct categories: (1) products that should be destroyed pursuant to the regulation adopted recently on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE); (2) products that, after processing, may be used as raw materials, mainly for bio-gas production plants; (3) by-products from animals intended for human consumption. During its vote, the Parliament fully took into account the need for the EU to have a sufficiently precise and binding legal framework to allow meat and bone meal to be possibly returned to the food chain in 2002.
MEPs called for a certain number of guarantees to be taken: - the identification of by-products for categories 1 and 2 through the use of a visual or olfactory marking procedure in order to avoid all fraudulent use in animal feed; - an end to "cannibalism", that is, by placing a ban on feeding pigs with pigmeat-derived products; - assurance that, because of its involvement in the outbreak of foot and mouth disease, all catering waste (from kitchen or table) be processed or treated in the same way as all other animal proteins. In this context, the EP calls on the Commission to present by June 2002, a proposal aimed at banning the use of swill, unless authorities can guarantee it is adequately processed according to sterilisation standards that eradicate the swine fever virus and that of foot and mouth (amendments from the Greens Group supported by the rapporteur). The EP also calls for: - inclusion in category 1 of the animal by-products and animals imported from third countries for which no verifiable information has been given concerning the feed that was used prior to their arrival on Union territory (these products and animals should not at any moment be considered as raw material that can be used for the manufacture of feed for stock farming); - a ban on exports of animal by-products in categories 1 and 2; - separation and processing of fat as for proteins, which means that only fats from category 3 may be used (i.e. from carcasses intended for human consumption) for the animal food chain.
MEPs insisted on the need to ensure that the three categories remain strictly separate during the whole of the food chain. This separation must be as clear and as obvious as possible so that any member of the civil society may check the system (storage depots and transit firms must be differentiated according to the categories of by-products). During the debate, Commissioner David Byrne welcomed these proposals and specifications which allow the risk of cross contamination to be limited. The EP proposed, with the agreement of Mr Byrne, that a new article should be drafted to remedy the derogation, set out in the directive adopted in 2000 (on waste incineration), for the incineration of animal carcasses. Given the dioxin crisis in 1999, the Parliament also hopes to put an end to the accumulation and circulation of chemical products, both natural and artificial (which are fat-soluble).
Rapporteur convinces plenary to limit derogations, which displeases David Byrne
Following the advice of its rapporteur (who was supported by Mr Byrne), the EP rejected a certain number of amendments that would have allowed: - remote regions to eliminate animal waste where the animals were farmed, to reduce risks inherent to collection and transport; - resort to the treatment of alkaline hydrolysis for products and waste that could then be destroyed on the farms (a method used in the United States for sheep imported from Europe in Vermont and for black-tailed deer and elk in Colorado and Wyoming); - extend the scope of category 1 to all suspect causes of death among livestock; - exclude from the scope of this regulation liquid manure produced from farms.
The second report adopted concerns a draft directive aiming to simplify the various texts on the health rules applicable to animal by-products. The rapporteur approves the Commission proposal on the issue, with the exception of the date that is suggested for the entry into force of the Directive. The EP calls on the Member States to implement the regulatory and administrative legislative provisions necessary to conform to the Directive as of 1 January 2002 (instead of 1 January 2003, according to the Commission). This date for the entry into force must correspond with the implementation date of the new regulation applicable to animal by-products examined in the previous report by Marit Paulsen.