Mr President, what I enjoy most about this House is that I am always learning new things. Today, for instance, I learned that, at the time when my esteemed colleagues Graefe zu Baringdorf and Böge were in the Landjugend – in other words until very recently, in a manner of speaking – there were open declarations. So that in itself has already made my morning. Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, the rapporteur from the committee which was ultimately entrusted with responsibility for this report, said that we have long been pressing for this open declaration and that we have redoubled our exhortations to the Commission on the marketing of compound feed since the BSE episode. He rightly praised the Commission for its more or less prompt fulfilment of its mandates. The Commission's proposal is sound, and I am convinced that we shall muster enough agreement within the House on the few amendments to be able to stand up to the Council on this issue. I entirely fail to comprehend why the manufacturers of compound feed – who have spoken to many of us, as you know – believe that resistance against open declarations will achieve anything. It will get them nowhere. As we have all been saying in our speeches, whether here in the House or in our home constituencies, we must begin to win back the public trust that we have lost, and we must be unstinting in our efforts to do so. That entails a host of measures. One such measure is the introduction of open declarations, and an open declaration is not merely an indication of the percentage of various content categories or generic classifications but clear and precise details of the ingredients contained in the feed mix. It is unacceptable to have ‘starch’, ‘fats’ or ‘protein’ on the packaging; the manufacturer must state which protein and which fats are in the mix. Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf made that quite clear. But we need more than that, which is why both the Agriculture Committee and the Environment Committee have stated once again, rather in the fashion of a Tibetan prayer wheel, that we need a white list. We need a white list of the additives and ingredients that are authorised for use in feed mixes. The Commission has pledged itself to work on this list and has also said it is not something that can be done in a couple of days. We do not expect that either. What we do expect, however, is that the Commission will give us regular updates and that it has an approximate timetable for the accomplishment of this task. After all, it would be unacceptable if, in the meantime, we were plunged back into a situation in which the Commission had to write to the Member States to find out how the Directive on sewage sludge was being interpreted. We will have none of that! We must have a clear and unequivocal white list, and both committees – the Agriculture Committee and the Environment Committee – have reiterated that point. It naturally means a large investment of time and money in monitoring, which is why both committees have stated that manufacturers also have an obligation to provide evidence. This obligation involves furnishing precise details of the composition of compound feedingstuffs on request, and is designed to shift some of the burden of proof as well as to minimise the cost of monitoring in the Member States. We naturally have no wish to spend vast amounts of time and money on monitoring and to be constantly setting off to conduct inspections all over the place. So if we were to do what we intend, if we were to implement it quickly and then pass quickly through the codecision procedure too, that would certainly be a huge step forward, and I feel sure that we shall be very strong and united in our dealings with the Council.

Political group: PSE