Allister again raises inequality in import standards
26 February 2008
During a debate in the Agriculture Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels, Traditional Unionist MEP Jim Allister again raised the need for imported food to meet the same production, animal welfare and environmental standards as home-produced EU food.
Mr Allister said:- "It remains an issue of great irritation to our own farmers that the EU makes no concessions when dealing with internal production, penalising for the least failure, but can permit imports, not knowing, and sometimes it seems not caring, how much default there has been in acceptable standards of production, quality, traceability and animal welfare.
This policy not only penalises our own producers but prejudices our consumers.
Soon we will impose new constraints on chicken production, with no regard to the consequence of enhancing imports from third countries like Thailand where production standards are often lamentable. There is no gain in animal welfare terms if we so up the standards in Europe as to drive production abroad, where such considerations hardly even feature. The net result is less animals in good conditions in Europe and more animals in poor conditions in Asia! What purpose is that serving, other than driving our own farmers out of business?"
