Brussels, 30/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - Next Tuesday in Strasbourg, the European Parliament is to debate the own initiative report by Swedish Liberal, Karl Erik Olsson, concerning follow-up to the BSE crisis with regards public health and consumer protection. The report, adopted unanimously on 19 December by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, is voluntarily evasive due to the divergence between Member States over the arrangement for making the ban on feeding farm animals with meat and bone meal (in force for the past year) more flexible. It calls on the Council not to decide "to soon lift the ban on feeding omnivores with meat and bone meal" before the "application of decisions on processing animal waste is guaranteed and before a clear declaration of the ingredients of animal feed is in place". The rapporteur does not therefore oppose making the legislation more flexible in order to allow poultry and fish to be fed on meat flour-based products again, and only demands a definitive ban on feeding ruminants on meat and bone meal, a ban on feeding animals on products derived from the same species ("cannibalism") and a strict separation of feed for ruminants and omnivores.
The rapporteur is highly critical of the failings and delays observed in the different Member States regarding the implementation of the Community legislation on the fight against BSE, and calls for the age required for carrying out BSE screening tests to be lowered to 24 months, and for an extension of the list of high risk materials to fats and tallow to be studied on the basis of scientific knowledge. He also calls on Member States to strengthen their monitoring of the implementation of BSE screening tests and to impose harsher sanctions for failure to comply with the legislation.
Mr Olsson suggests extension of the screening tests to sheep (Ed.: which will soon be proposed by the Commission) because of the possible transmission of BSE to these species. He also underlines that, in future, the Commission should pay greater attention to the question of risks of cross contamination in order to guarantee "zero tolerance" about the presence of meat and bone meal residues in feed intended for ruminants.
The Commission is invited to carry out a detailed investigation on the possible link between the way calves are fed and BSE, further to the recent cases in Denmark and Finland, and to take the measures necessary to ensure that animal feed is not contaminated by BSE. The rapporteur supports the Community animal slaughter policy when the existence of a case of BSE is confirmed, which authorises not only slaughter of the whole herd but also more selective culling in the Member States which have been authorised to do so by the Commission.
According to the report, the EU may reduce the risk of a third wave of BSE in the context of enlargement, by providing technical and financial assistance and aid to the candidate countries so that they do not repeat their mistakes through a lack of knowledge or means.
It calls on the Commission not to negotiate the transitional period for legislation on quality, health and registration of animals. Finally, Mr Olsson calls for global reform of the monitoring system applicable in the Union in the veterinary area, in order to grant greater importance to Community controls, and recommends that the staff of the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) in Dublin should be increased to this end.