WRITTEN QUESTION E-0984/01 by Ulpu Iivari (PSE) to the Commission. Poor quality of text used in an information campaign supported by the EU.
Date: 2001-03-30
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: European language, Finland, citrus fruit, public awareness campaign

13.11.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 318 E/169

Answer given by Mr Byrne on behalf of the Commission

(4 May 2001)

Council Directive 91/492/EEC of 15 July 1991, lays down the health conditions for the production and
the placing on the market of live bivalve molluscs (1).

The document referred to by the Honourable Member is one of several proposals for a recast of
Community hygiene rules which are now the subject of consideration by the Parliament and by the
Council. The final text of the recast proposals will only be known upon completion of the co-decision
process now underway.

The present requirements in relation to determination of the faecal contamination level of a production
area for live bivalve molluscs are set down in Chapter I of the Annex to Council Directive 91/492/EEC and
all the Member States must apply these rules.

(1) OJ L 268, 24.9.1991.

(2001/C 318 E/182)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0984/01

by Ulpu Iivari (PSE) to the Commission

(30 March 2001)

Subject: Poor quality of text used in an information campaign supported by the EU

The European Union and an organisation called Intercitrus are cooperating in the running of a marketing
campaign to encourage the consumption of citrus fruit, part of which takes the form of the website
www.orangefruit.net. The whole of the Finnish-language text on this site is linguistically clumsy and in
many respects totally substandard. Even the European Union is referred to there as (cid:145)Euroopan yhteisyys(cid:146).

The following excerpts give the flavour of the whole:

Since 1998, the European Commonwealth and Intercitrus have placed a bet on health, they have
made different campaigns advertising the healthy and tasty qualities of natural oranges and
clementines.

Disseminating the qualities of oranges and clementines and explaining the advantages of eating them
to the customers, these are the objectives of the campaign, funded by Intercitrus and the European
Commonwealth is also involved in the funding.

According to the website, at least € 4,6 million have been spent on the campaign. It is running in eight
Member States.

In the light of the above:

1. What measures does the Commission propose to take to improve the quality of the language used in

this campaign?

2. What measures does the Commission propose to take to ensure that the language used in all
campaigns receiving support from the European Union is error-free and comprehensible and thus that
these campaigns also promote, inter alia, the objectives of the European Year of Languages 2001?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(23 May 2001)

The Commission would like to inform the Honourable Member that the dynamic link to the Finnish text
from the home page of the Internet site in question ((cid:146)orangefruit.net(cid:146)) has been severed. The Commission
has also asked InterCitrus to remove the page in Finnish as well. Obviously the Community will not be
part-financing the Finnish part of the site in any way.

C 318 E/170

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

13.11.2001

The Commission would like to stress that this promotion campaign is under indirect management, which
means that the designated competent body (in this case the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture) in normally
responsible for checking the promotion programme. However, the Commission retains a monitoring role,
which enabled it to take the action referred to above.

(2001/C 318 E/183)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0985/01

by Paul Lannoye (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

Subject: Dioxin and furane emissions from ore sintering plants

(30 March 2001)

from Xavier Desgain, Member of

the Walloon Region to two
The answers given by Michel ForŒt, Minister for the Environment of
parliamentary questions
the Walloon Regional Parliament, on
24 November 1999 and 20 June 2000, reveal that the ISSeP (Public Service Scientific Institute) signed an
agreement on 27 March 1998 with the Land Environment Office (LUA) of North-Rhine-Westphalia for
updating EU dioxin emissions inventories. The work carried out under this agreement is, via the LUA,
50 % funded by DG XI, which apparently proposed in particular that measurements be taken of dioxin
emissions from two ore sintering plants, at LiŁge and Charleroi. Information from unofficial sources
indicates that the results of the measurements are alarming: 4-7 ng TEQ dioxin/Nm3 for Charleroi and 0,6-
0,8 ng TEQ dioxin/Nm3 for LiŁge.

1.

Can the Commission confirm these results?

Have measurements of this type also been taken at ore sintering plants and other iron and steel
2.
installations in other Member States? If so, can the Commission provide the results of those measurements?

3. What steps does the Commission plan to take to reduce dioxin emissions from such installations,
which, given the concentrations and volumes of gas recorded, are apparently far higher than those from
household waste incineration plants?

Answer given by Mrs Wallstr(cid:246)m on behalf of the Commission

(7 June 2001)

1.
(cid:145)The European Dioxin Emission Inventory (cid:129) Stage II(cid:146) was prepared by the North Rhine
Westphalia State Environment Agency on behalf of the Commission and was finalised in December
2000. The report includes, among other results, the results of Dioxin measurements conducted in iron ore
sintering plants in the Walloon part of Belgium (LiŁge and Charleroi): stack emissions were measured to be
0,7 (range 0,6-0,8) for the LiŁge plant and 6,8 (range 5,2-9,8) nanogramme (ng) I (cid:129) toxic equivalents per
cubic metre (TEQ/m3) for the Charleroi plant.

No dioxin emission measurements have been conducted at iron ore sintering plants in other Member
2.
States. However, concerning the Iron and Steel Industry, measurement programs were carried out in iron/
steel foundries (cold wind cupola furnaces) in Germany and in Electric Arc Furnaces steel plants in Greece
and in Portugal. The final report of this project will be soon available on the Community Dioxin web page:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/dioxin/index.htm

The Commission is

3.
in the process of developing a (cid:145)Community Strategy for Dioxins and
polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs)(cid:146). Several actions that are foreseen in this future strategy to reduce the
Dioxin contamination of the environment are focused on sectors with a Dioxin emission potential such as
the Iron and Steel Industry.