WRITTEN QUESTION E-3262/02 by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Increase in the extent of the area where groundwater is seriously polluted as a result of bombardments around the town of Pancevo on the Danube in Serbia.
Date: 2002-11-19
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Serbia, chemical industry, environmental protection, groundwater, petrochemicals, pollution, transfrontier pollution, weapon of mass destruction

3.7.2003

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 155 E/121

The White Paper also proposed that the general public should have access to non-confidential information
from the REACH system. Much human exposure data is expected to be non-confidential and so would be
publicly available.

Any test method, be it animal or non-animal, cannot predict with certainty the response in humans.
Validation is therefore a process of establishing the level of uncertainty associated with a given method.
While the data from animal tests are not perfect models for human responses, they have been successfully
used for decades to predict human responses to pharmaceuticals and other chemical substances. They can
therefore contribute to the validation of non-animal test methods.

While the Commission does not, a priori, exclude the use of human exposure data for the validation of
non-animal test methods, experience shows that it is rarely possible to obtain a sufficiently large and
diverse human data set of the quality needed for use in a validation study.

(2003/C 155 E/133)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3262/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(19 November 2002)

Subject: Increase in the extent of

the area where groundwater is seriously polluted as a result of

bombardments around the town of Pancevo on the Danube in Serbia

Is the Commission aware that, as a result of the series of bombardments of the industrial town of
in April 1999, chemical and petrochemical

1.
Panèevo, on the Danube in Serbia north-east of Belgrade,
plants were damaged or destroyed and that oil and chemicals leaked into the ground as a result?

2.
Is the Commission furthermore aware that, since the time of the leaks referred to in paragraph 1,
worrying changes have occurred in the health of people and animals, taking the form both of a higher
incidence of various types of cancer (lung cancer, skin cancer and leukaemia) and of reproductive problems
(miscarriages)?

Does the Commission consider it adequate that, although the soil has been studied in recent years
3.
with support from various sources, ranging from the municipalities of Amsterdam and Zaanstad in the
Netherlands to the United Nations, and a number of measures have been taken to clean up the industrial
sites concerned, the relevant work is now being terminated despite the fact that the serious pollution of
groundwater outside the sites persists and is now spreading ever wider?

4.
Is it right to accept lasting and ever wider pollution of groundwater with dangerous substances near
the River Danube, which will affect not only Serbia but also the Iron Gate (Derdap, Portile de Fier)
reservoir on the border with Romania and the downstream applicant countries Romania and Bulgaria?

5. What will the Commission do to ensure that the remaining pollution of groundwater around
Panèevo is completely eliminated, so that it cannot continue to spread?

Source: Netwerk (TV programme), TV Nederland 1, 3 November 2002.

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(17 December 2002)

The Commission is aware of the situation in Panèevo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) referred
to by the Honourable Member, and that there were problems in the area even before the NATO bombing.
The Commission is, however, unable to comment on the accuracy of the claims made by the television
programme on the health problems in the town.

The Commission would also not wish to pass comment on the actions undertaken by other bilateral
donors, particularly as it is unaware of the reasons behind such alleged decisions.

C 155 E/122

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

3.7.2003

As the problem referred to is situated in a third country, ultimate responsibility for dealing with it lies with
that country. However, the Commission does examine the possibility to use its external assistance to
address priorities identified by the beneficiary countries, within the limitations of available resources. In
this context, the Commission is supporting the ongoing preparation of a Local Environmental Action Plan
for Panèevo through the FRY package of the CARDS assistance programme. This plan will reflect on a
realistic financial framework for implementation of the most urgent environmental protection measures.

Through the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River the Commission is also
working to pursue river basin management in accordance with the principles of the Community Water
Framework Directive (1), for the countries that lie within the Danube catchment area.

(1) Directive 2000/60/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for

Community action in the field of water policy (cid:1) OJ L 327, 22.12.2000.

(2003/C 155 E/134)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3265/02

by Renzo Imbeni (PSE)
and Guido Podestà (PPE-DE) to the Council

(19 November 2002)

Subject: Seat of the European Food Safety Authority

Now that the top-level managers responsible for European food safety policy have been appointed in both
the Commission and the European Food Safety Authority, is the Council ready to take a decision within
the next few months on the definitive seat of the European Food Safety Authority so that it can start
carrying out its tasks under optimum conditions?

How does the Council intend to persuade the Heads of State or Government to comply with the functional
criteria set by the Commission and the European Parliament when taking their decision?

Reply

(3 March 2003)

The European Council agreed at the Laeken Summit that the question of the definitive seat of the
European Food Safety Authority would be resolved in the context of an overall agreement on the seats of
the various newly-created European agencies.

Not wishing, however, to call into question the timetable requiring the Authority to commence operations
as from 2002, which it had adopted at the Nice summit and confirmed at the Göteborg summit, the
European Council also agreed that, pending overall agreement, the Authority could begin operations in
Brussels.

This solution facilitated, in particular, the rapid establishment of the Management Board, an essential body
of the Authority which has been up and running for several months.

(2003/C 155 E/135)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3268/02

by Maurizio Turco (NI) to the Commission

(12 November 2002)

Subject: Media funding and monitoring of the impartiality of information provided by bodies funded by

the Union and public entities in the Member States

The violation of pluralism and the impartiality of
principles and the rule of law.

information is a serious violation of democratic