Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, just as the plenary, just over six months ago, adopted by a large majority the report from the temporary committee on foot and mouth disease, so, today, we are stating our position on the proposal for a Council directive on the control of FMD. In so doing, we are coming to the end of a very important chapter, and I would like to take this opportunity of again, and very warmly, thanking all Members, as well as the secretariat and, most especially, the Commission for their excellent cooperation. Our special report, and the report now before us, are the fruit of the best kind of cooperation. Many of Parliament’s demands have already been incorporated into the proposal that the Commission has now submitted, and so the various amendments we have tabled are about making the proposal more precise rather than giving it a new direction. As much for the avoidance of misunderstandings as for any other reason, I would like to re-emphasise the fact that we are not calling for any sort of general preventive vaccination of the sort that was customary prior to 1992, but for emergency vaccination, allowing the animals to live, to be the means of first resort when it comes to containing any outbreak of FMD. This is an important distinction, and it still needs to be maintained at certain points in the text. I would also like to emphasise that products derived from vaccinated animals are not in any way hazardous to human health, nor would they even have any effect on it. That much we know, and that is why it would be impossible to justify banning the marketing of products derived from animals vaccinated in the course of an outbreak. We know that there will be problems as regards trade with third states such as Japan and USA, but this can be dealt with by regionalisation, and the award of ‘FMD-free’ status six months after vaccination, rather than – as was the case a year ago – after twelve months, must be considered an essential contribution towards developing a new policy. It might be added, though, that we need to keep on working towards getting the OIE to lay down a three-month rule. This is the subject of an amendment tabled by Mr Böge and others, which I ask you to support. We must, however, vote against the Committee’s Amendment No 32, which I do not believe takes adequate account of the present position in international law. The ’ Amendment No 49 also needs to be rejected, as it would reduce the room for manoeuvre that we need. I do not want to go into the individual proposals in detail right now, but the incidence of fowlpest or chicken flu is now showing us how important it is to find a new direction for the control of zoonoses and fundamentally re-evaluate it. In the Netherlands, twenty-five million animals have already been slaughtered, and the disease has now appeared in Germany as well. As we demand in very clear terms in our report, we must eventually find a completely different way of dealing with epizootics, so that it is not trading and economic interests alone that determine what is done. The strategy must involve ethics just as much as it does economics. The risk of diseases spreading is, in part, made greater by intensive livestock farming and by international trade relations, and so vaccination policy needs to be thought through anew. Some viruses are highly deadly and so, in future, another approach will be called for. In its report, Parliament has very clearly outlined the economic and social consequences of a strategy failing to hit the mark. In the same way, we have to consider how, in future, we can recoup the costs, whether by way of national funds or in conjunction with a European Epizootic Fund, and who is to be compensated – only those immediately affected, whose animals were slaughtered, or all those who sustained financial losses. This point has not yet been satisfactorily resolved. There is also the need for research, especially applied research, to be stepped up if we are to have improved vaccines, but, at the same time, prophylaxis must be maintained in businesses, in imports, and when transporting animals. This is more important than ever as a means of preventing pathogens or viruses from getting to the animals in the first place. It is our hope that the Council will, under the Greek Presidency, be able to come to an agreement that will do justice to the needs of the producers, that is, the farmers, the consumers, and also the animals. In these areas, the EU has competence and options available, which should be used to the full. We in this House have played our part, both in the committee and on the ground, by talking with the people affected in Great Britain and the Netherlands. I hope that the future will find us able to break through the vicious circle of killing and isolating. (Applause)

Political group: PSE