Mr President, Commissioner, we have succeeded in gaining the acceptance of open declaration of foodstuffs. By 'we' I mean Parliament, assuredly also with the Commission's support, but the Commission manifested a mild attack of weakness during the procedure with regard to what we considered necessary to the labelling of compound feedingstuffs. I think that honourable Members will back me up when I state quite clearly that, if Parliament had not had the right of co-decision in this area, we would not have been able to push this through. Quite apart from the matter under discussion, I wish, then, to emphasise that we need the right of co-decision in all agricultural policy matters so that, as we have done in this instance, we can come to sound and sensible results and make use of the expertise and political wisdom that reign in Parliament to support the Commission – and, I would expressly observe, to support a strong position taken by the Commission – to achieve satisfactory outcomes in the debates with the Council. This issue of open declaration has come a long way. We are now amending a directive dating back to 1979, when open declaration, which existed in Germany at any rate, was abolished at European level, and since which time I have also been active in this field, attempting to make good what went wrong then. It is a long time, 25 years, since then, but patience is needed in politics as everywhere else. That we have achieved this result is surely due to there having been the BSE crisis, which made it clear that farmers have to know what they are giving as feedingstuff if they are then to take on the responsibility for the feeding of their animals. This catastrophe has taught us, in the meantime, that everything we feed to animals is itself in the food chain and is – admittedly by a circuitous route rather than directly – fed to human beings as well. This makes it a matter of urgency that farmers should know what the feedingstuffs contain. We then asked you, Commissioner Byrne, and also Mr Fischler, within the framework of the parliamentary procedure to install the Commission in office, where you stood on open declaration. At the time you said: 'Yes, open declaration should come into being.' Indeed it did, but it took another two-and-a-half or three years for the legislation to be tabled. But a good thing is worth waiting for. As I have said, the Council then withdrew the good proposal from the Commission, in which the only improvement we had made was to the positive list, and the Commission agreed to the Council's proposal for a less precise declaration to be implemented. The result we have achieved is a change of direction – a change to the right direction. We now have open declaration. The 15% tolerance takes account of the industry's supplies and actual practice in order to avoid the possibility of partial rejection of feedingstuffs, but we have also made it possible for farmers to be told on request the exact composition of fodder and feedingstuffs. We have likewise obliged the Commission to supply us with a positive list, or at least a draft positive list, by the end of next year, so that we can achieve a positive result in this area within the life of this Parliament. There must be stipulations as to what can find its way into feedingstuffs. I would like, finally, to express my warmest thanks to my colleagues, most especially to Mr Friedrich, the Vice-President, who chaired the Committee, but also to Mr Kindermann. The three of us made up the negotiating delegation, and I must say that if we had not brought such determination, such a common mind, and what was almost joy, to the work in order to show for once that we too were in a position to turn our thoughts into words and laws, then all this would not have been possible. So, many thanks. I believe we have done a good job, and it was interesting to take part in a conciliation procedure of this sort. We did, admittedly, say that a mountain had roared and brought forth a mouse, for, in view of what was up for negotiation, a gigantic effort was involved. But it was good, too, to get an insight into something like that. So, to all who took part, including our other colleagues, many thanks. This result is something we can face our countries and our electors with.

Political group: Verts-ALE