Lively exchange in Strasbourg on Dioxin scare
22 December 2008
During Question Time with the EU Commission in the Strasbourg Parliament there was a lively exchange with Commissioner Androula Vassiliou (Health Commissioner), when Jim Allister raised the dioxin scare, during a question on food labelling.
Using the experience of Northern Ireland, when all pork produce was withdrawn because of uncertainty as to its country of origin, to illustrate that current labelling requirements were not adequate, the MEP invited the Commissioner to agree and indicate what lessons the Commission would learn. The Commissioner drew considerable derision from several members when she tried to maintain that "the Irish crisis is proof that we have good systems in place".
Commenting Jim Allister said, "I was appalled as to just how uninformed the Commissioner was. She did not seem to know that on pork there certainly is not adequate labelling to enable its country of origin to be fully identified. She was clearly taken aback by the reaction of MEPs to her complacency and in consequence I trust the Commission will waken up to the action which needs to be taken."
The following is the text of the exchange:-
Jim Allister (NI). – Commissioner, I would suggest that the present arrangements are not working. This is illustrated by recent experience in my own constituency. There has just been a scare on the island of Ireland about dioxin-contaminated feedstuff in the Republic of Ireland, affecting produce circulating throughout the whole island of Ireland.
In my constituency of Northern Ireland, where none of that contaminated feedstuff was consumed, all pork products had to be taken off the shelves. Why? Because we could not adequately tell what was the country of origin of the pork produce.
That is a vivid illustration that the present arrangements are not working. We should not have had to inflict all that damage upon our local pork industry because we did not know where exactly the pork produce on our shelves came from. So in the light of that, will you address the issues and tell us what lessons you have learned from that?
Androula Vassiliou, Member of the Commission: First of all, I think the question of the Irish crisis is proof that we have good systems in place. You do not agree, but I think that, if we did not have good systems in place, the Irish crisis would have gone unnoticed.
It is in fact because we found out that there was this meat with dioxin – because of the traceability of the traders, and of where they buy and where they deliver their meat – that we were immediately able to withdraw it.
(An intervention from the floor)
It was a precautionary measure that the Government of Ireland decided to take. Traceability is possible because they keep records of where they sell their products.
You have your opinion about that. Of course, I am sure my services will reflect on the Irish crisis because it has cost the European Union many millions of euros and another large sum of money to the Irish Government; so it is something which will not remain unnoticed, and we shall study it.
But I believe – this is my personal opinion – that it is thanks to the traceability rules that we were really able to address the crisis."
