Mr President, I wish to join the others in thanking the rapporteur, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, for an excellent job well done. It is one of the few areas in which I have noticed that all political groups in this House had very little difference at the end of the day, and certainly our mission was exactly the same. I thank him and colleagues who were on the temporary committee for the first year. I should like to thank Mr Sturdy, Mr Parish and my UK colleagues who were at the forefront in promoting the original establishment of the temporary committee, for reasons that will be obvious. It is not often that I agree fully with my Northern Ireland colleague, Mr Paisley. However, on this issue we would find very little to differ on, and I welcome his comments here this evening. The outbreak of FMD in the European Union in 2001 was a disaster not only for agriculture but also for many related enterprises and organisations. The outbreak demonstrated without question that the European Union's FMD risk-management policy, and the risk assessment on which that was based, needed to be reviewed. Farmers, vets and politicians all shared the great concern of the general public over the death and destruction of millions of animals, of which many, if not most, were not infected with the disease. There was huge psychological damage, in particular to farmers and their families when they had to depopulate or destroy their animals. It is not just in the UK - the epicentre of the outbreak - but even in the Cooley Peninsula in Ireland, which had to be depopulated that to this day the psychological damage to the families concerned is absolutely immense. While I do not support the return to routine or preventive vaccination, a review of vaccination policy is very appropriate, especially the use of emergency or fire-break vaccination to control the spread of an outbreak. Further discussion with the OIE, the World Organisation for Animal Health, is urgently necessary to ensure that an infected country can regain its FMD-free status as soon as possible. After the last case and after the slaughter of the last vaccinated animal it is necessary to regain FMD status. In contrast to a colleague, Mr Busk, who has just spoken, I do not have problems with vaccinated animals entering the food chain. However, as long as the OIE has concerns about exporting such animals for the food chain, we have to get in line. Therefore, we need our scientists to get their heads together on this and resolve it. FMD-vaccinated animals are not infectious when they get into the food chain. We already vaccinate our cattle for a whole array of diseases and consume them daily. Therefore we need to become rational in our approach to this particular issue. Marker vaccines to distinguish vaccinated animals from animals carrying the virus will have a major role to play in this area in the future. I would like to make a special plea to ensure that Member States' veterinary services are properly resourced. With serious financial losses now for many years in livestock enterprises, we cannot take for granted any longer the existence of rural large-animal veterinary practices, especially in our remote areas, let alone the development of urgently needed herd-health surveillance programmes involving routine visits by practising vets. The vet is in the front line of surveillance for indigenous and exotic diseases. The one thing we can be sure of is not whether there is another outbreak of an exotic disease in the EU, but when. I would also like to thank the Commission for acceding to my plea for a special protocol for non-susceptible animals, in particular equidae. I refer to Annex VI on the restrictions on the movement of equidae in this area. A few amendments were accepted at committee and I would urge the Commission to indicate that it would take them on board. An emergency must be documented by a veterinary surgeon on call 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. For the equestrian and racing industries, Saturday, Sunday and bank holiday Mondays must be covered for the movement of animals for breeding or for emergency operations or for competition purposes - because the horse does not carry, it is not susceptible. The transport must be authorised by the competent authorities, but they must be contactable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An on-call official veterinarian must be informed about the route prior to the departure of any horse transported in dedicated transport in an outbreak. I declare an interest in the equestrian area. I thank the Commission and the authorities concerned for including for the first time a protocol in an FMD contingency plan for a non-susceptible species.

Political group: PPE-DE