WRITTEN QUESTION E-2972/02 by Michl Ebner (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Funding the disposal of BSE risk material.
Date: 2002-10-22
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU Member State, State aid, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, carcase, health control, restriction on competition, waste disposal

C 110 E/138

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

8.5.2003

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(6 December 2002)

Competition COM/A/6/01 has just been completed. According to the notice of the competition, Field 1
concerns external relations for which the reserve list figure is 80, and Field 2 concerns management of aid
to non-member countries for which the reserve list figure is 250.

Statistics concerning this above open competition are sent direct to the Honourable Member and to
Parliament’s Secretariat.

The Commission is collecting the information it needs to provide full factual answers to the last two
questions. It will communicate its findings as soon as possible.

(2003/C 110 E/157)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2972/02

by Michl Ebner (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(22 October 2002)

Subject: Funding the disposal of BSE risk material

At least since the BSE crisis, which has taken on devastating proportions throughout Europe for both
farmers and consumers, the need for tight controls of feedingstuffs and specialist disposal of animal
carcasses has been apparent.

Initiatives and programmes have since then been launched, at both national and regional level, with the
aim of disposing of BSE risk material according to the state of the art, so that a similar disaster can be
prevented in future.

In South Tyrol, for instance, there is a carcass disposal service that is unique throughout Italy. It is 100 %-
funded by the province, and has been disposing of all BSE risk material from all slaughterhouses for the
past two years. Projects of this type help greatly to improve the disposal standards of stockbreeders in the
case of animal carcasses. Animals are in fact very seldom buried or illegally disposed of at unknown sites.
This also ensures that when sharp falls in meat prices make compulsory slaughter procedures necessary,
carcasses no longer get into the food chain.

But the 100 % subsidies announced in Brussels in 2000 have a five-year limit. This limit expires in 2004.

Does the Commission not agree that there is a need, particularly in the interest of consumer and
environmental protection, to continue services of this kind by continuing to grant a 100 % contribution
after 2004?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(18 November 2002)

In view of the exceptional circumstances due to the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)-crisis, the
Commission has approved a number of aid measures, which aimed to minimise the risks to consumers
and the environment and mitigate the financial impact on the meat sector and disposal services. These
measures are in place for a limited period only since, in the long term, the polluter-pays principle (cid:1) as
referred to in Article 174(2) of the EC Treaty (cid:1) must be complied with.

The Commission has recently been asked by various Member States to examine ways of avoiding
distortions of competition as a result of such assistance. Several Member States have pointed out that the
current situation, whereby slaughterhouses or farmers in certain Member States and regions receive

8.5.2003

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 110 E/139

the disposal of slaughter waste and fallen stock and for

transmissible spongiform
assistance for
encephalopathy (TSE) tests while others receive no recompense for such costs, creates serious distortions
of competition. The Agriculture Council has also discussed this issue on a number of occasions.

Directorate general Agriculture has therefore carried out a survey of the Member States to collect the
relevant information on these measures. The Member States were also invited to a meeting of the working
group ‘Conditions of competition in agriculture’, which discussed the danger of distortions of competition
due to such aid schemes.

Based on this information the Commission is now drawing up Community guidelines setting out future
Commission policy with respect to state aid for TSE tests, fallen stock and slaughterhouse waste. These
guidelines will presumably enter into force from 1 January 2003 onwards.

(2003/C 110 E/158)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2974/02

by Pere Esteve (ELDR)
and Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(22 October 2002)

Subject: Granting of European aid to economic development in rural areas in the administrative district of

Safor

The administrative district of Safor in the Region of Valencia submitted two projects to compete for aid
under the Proder II programme. The first project (APE-Safor) was submitted by the ‘Association for the
Economic Promotion of Safor’, which includes the Mancomunitat de la Safor and the Higher Polytechnic of
Gandía, together with about a dozen private organisations in the business, social, ecological and cultural
spheres. The second project (Vernissa-Serpis) was submitted by five town councils with mayors belonging
to the People’s Party (PP) in the area known as the ‘Vall de Vernissa’. The latter project was submitted
without the knowledge of three other mayors belonging to a different political party, but whose councils
would, in principle, benefit from the aid requested. The first project, approved by all the political parties
and debated in the relevant fora with total transparency, covered all the councils in the administrative
district (including those involved in the Vernissa-Serpis project) in order to avoid fragmentation. The five
mayors referred to above nevertheless decided to act separately and present their own project. In the end
the Agriculture Department of the Generalitat Valenciana (the body responsible for distributing the aid)
awarded the aid to the Vernissa-Serpis project and rejected the other project, which had the same aims and
would have benefited the whole Safor area.

Those responsible for the APE-Safor project spent a month asking for the documentation on the Valencian
Proder projects to be reviewed, but they were not given an appointment until an hour after the deadline
for the submission of appeals against the award of the Proder funding. They then drew up a preliminary
appeal for reallocation of funding requesting the annulment of the award of European funding under the
Proder programme, since they considered that the Generalitat Valenciana had withheld information by not
allowing APE-Safor access to the basic criteria and detailed explanations justifying its rejection of their
project (the award decision merely indicated which projects had been selected and which had not, on the
basis of a detailed report which was not made public). The appeal pointed out that all the documentation
concerning the award of aid by a public authority must be totally public and transparent and that any
restriction on it constitutes unfair obscurantism and in this case meant that the association APE-Safor was
helpless. Furthermore, the appeal considered that the origin of the order was contrary to the EU criteria for
the application of rural developments projects, as regards the composition of local action groups and the
chairmanship of such groups.
inter alia, that the assessment committee responsible for
allocating the money consists of people appointed exclusively by institutions run by the PP. The appeal
was rejected by the Agriculture Department on 22 July 2002, which has prompted the questioners to take
up the complaint with the European institutions.

It emerged,

Is the Commission aware of the facts outlined above? Does it intend to take any steps to investigate and
remedy this alleged instance of mismanagement and political use of European funding by certain public
authorities?