Mr President, Commissioner, as the ban on placing BST on the market and administering it expires at the end of 1999, this matter has become a matter of urgency to us. This proposal is designed to definitively prohibit the marketing of BST and its administration to dairy cows. The Commission refers to scientific studies which confirm that the use of BST inflicts unnecessary pain on animals. Consequently, I reject the marketing and administration of BST in the European Union, as formulated in the report, on the grounds of animal welfare. May I remind you that all the Member States have approved and ratified an agreement on animal welfare on livestock holdings. BST use increases the incidence of mastitis and foot and leg disorders and adversely affects reproduction in cattle. There is also evidence of loss of profitability, premature culling and death. The numbers speak for themselves. BST increases the risk of mastitis by 25%, the risk of infertility by 18% and of paralysis by as much as 50%. However, there are not only animal welfare considerations; there are also health and economic considerations which justify the withdrawal of BST. BST is also rejected by consumers. It is reasonable to suppose that BST could lead to a change in consumption patterns and exacerbate the imbalance in the milk, milk products and beef and veal sectors. What is even more ridiculous is that surpluses are produced even under normal conditions. BST is not a treatment; its only purpose is to increase milk production. The milk quota system was introduced precisely in order to reduce milk production and now we are to take it ad absurdum with BST. That cannot be! Exports would also suffer. No major buyer or producer of milk and milk products anywhere in the world has permitted the use of this hormone, apart from the USA. We have been elected to represent our citizens and hence our consumers. We must therefore take our duty seriously and fight on behalf of the electorate. BST is a genetically engineered hormone. No Member State has yet carried out field tests with BST. It has not been established what changes could potentially occur in the composition of milk and the effects of genetic engineering on human health cannot yet be assessed. The fact that a small number of countries have allowed the hormone to be used must not lead to a watering down of international health standards. However, even more decisive is the fact that BST is rejected by consumers. It is not by chance that leading supermarket chains stated, following a consumer survey in 1994, that they would not sell milk from cows treated with BST, even if the EU moratorium were lifted. What we cannot, however, explain to consumers is that all the Member States of the European Union import a lot of BST milk products from the USA, together with products from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria, and that these products, for example, cheese from milk obtained this way, have been landing on our consumers’ tables for a long time. As third countries in which this hormone is permitted are not obliged to notify this officially, the Commission does not have an exhaustive list of these countries. I think this is another challenge facing the Commission. The Commission should check, first, if BST is harmful to human health and, secondly, how imports of BST products can be made really transparent. The Commission proposal has no effect on the production of BST in the Member States or on imports of this substance, provided that it is to be exported to third countries. Allow me, as your rapporteur, to conclude by saying that we all naturally find it difficult to explain to our voters that BST is already being manufactured in some Member States but that it is not used here. I am not sure if we should go into this point too critically in public, given that jobs are at stake. I hope – and we are at one with the Commission on this – that we can agree on this urgency and wrap the whole thing up tomorrow. Thank you to all those who were involved. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE