<tc:textxmlns:tc="http://www.dspin.de/data/textcorpus">What has happened in recent years has brought to our attention the tremendous problems facing not only to the producers of food but also the consumers. We must strike a balance between them. We must resolve this issue, because it is important that consumers should regain confidence in the food they eat.
One way to achieve this is to have total transparency as far as food labelling is concerned. GMOs are the new challenge facing us. This is something that people are very worried about and quite rightly so: I myself share these concerns. But I think we should not allow our concerns about GMOs to overshadow our concerns about growth promoters used in animal feed or antibiotics used in compound feed. Indeed, we should not allow GMOs to obscure the fact that meat and bonemeal are still included in animal feeds in many countries in Europe. One factor behind these developments that has been referred to in this debate is competition - competition between Member States on the cost of the production of food. These are all areas in which we have to ensure a level playing field: food must be of the same standard in all Member States.
We have had the dioxin scare, BSE and many other problems. The main problem is a financial one, namely who bears the cost? The problem is that the cost is not shared equally between the consumer and the producer: the producer has been forced to bear all the cost. We need an equitable distribution of the extra cost that has been incurred. We must also ensure that the food that is imported into the European Union meets the standards within the European Union. If we do not maintain those standards for imported food then we are going to encounter greater difficulties in the future.
