Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it was and always will be one of life’s mysteries, one of the unsolved riddles of the follow-up to the BSE crisis, that we still have no Community rules for the control of scrapie in sheep. In this respect, the Commission’s proposals to amend directive 91/68 and delete the reference to scrapie and the report by Mrs Roth-Behrendt on the detection and control of TSE infections in general, comply with Parliament’s demands in the wake of the follow-up report by the BSE committee of inquiry and we expressly welcome this. I should, however, like to add that no new scientific knowledge was needed which proved that the experimental infection of sheep by feeding them BSE-infected feed produced a clinical expression of the disease which is indistinguishable from the symptoms of scrapie. No new knowledge was needed, because the theory from the beginning was that BSE and scrapie must be related and this theory has increasingly taken hold. From this point of view we are slightly behind the times. I am therefore in complete agreement with the Commission’s proposal on scrapie. I should, however, like to add that it only makes sense if we ensure that the new TSE regulation allows a reasonable symbiosis between consumer protection and practicable suggestions. We therefore need to take consistent account of six or seven points in the coming debate on the TSE proposal, and that of course includes scrapie. When we discuss the TSE regulation, Commissioner, we must also clarify that we shortly intend to discuss separate proposals under Article 152 as the corresponding legal base for products excluded from this regulation, such as cosmetics, medicinal products or animal feed. We insist on this. As far as I am concerned, that means that fundamental core provisions in this proposed regulation must not be relegated yet again to the Annex but included in the body of the proposed regulation because we here in Parliament want to and will assume joint responsibility here. It also means that, when we are fighting these diseases, the problem of destroying whole herds in the event of an outbreak of scrapie or BSE and the question of defining geographical areas are items which also remain on the agenda. Although I welcome the fact that the fight against scrapie is included in the TSE regulation, I feel that the Commission’s proposals for fighting scrapie are still not consistent enough and I shall submit amendments on behalf of the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development to tighten up the proposals when the Roth-Behrendt report is debated. I should also like to address two other points. We expressly welcome the regional classification of the status of Member States as regards outbreaks of scrapie or TSEs. Here again the Commission is increasing its response to the work carried out by and the demands made by Parliament. Finally, in discussing the question of the future application of tests, we should of course bear in mind that we have still not reached the point where tests are generally applicable. But the tests available now are perfectly able to guarantee security in consumer health policy, albeit not for every individual animal. But when we need to consider if a region can move from a negative epidemiological status to a better category, an epidemiological inspection of the situation in a region in the form of suitable sampling in abattoirs using such tests can provide useful pointers in the political and scientific debate as to where there is a need for preventive consumer protection and, basically, where such tests can be used to help us settle disputes on a proper basis. I would be grateful, Commissioner, if you would take these passing comments on board in the report on scrapie and in the general report on the fight against TSEs and bear in mind that we shall be calling you to account on these points. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE