Key Notes

The fight against foot and mouth disease

Background:

On 20 February 2001, the British Government confirmed the first case of Foot and Mouth Disease in the United Kingdom for over 30 years. Within weeks, the world's worst Foot and Mouth epidemic had spread to France, Ireland and the Netherlands. Eradication efforts came at a painfully high cost - millions of animals were slaughtered and the direct and indirect financial impact ran to billions of euros. Rural communities across the European Union continue to feel the psychological and economic effects. The disturbing televised images of animals burning in their thousands on open pyres will not be quickly forgotten.


I. What does the European Union do?

EU legislation plays a central role in the fight against Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). In September 2003, a new package of EU measures to control outbreaks of FMD was adopted by Agriculture Ministers (Council Directive 2003/85/EC). FMD is not dangerous for human health but outbreaks of this highly-contagious animal disease have a major economic and psycho-social impact on rural and national economies in the EU. The new Directive sets out detailed measures to rapidly control and eradicate the disease and outlines procedures for recovering the status "free of FMD and infection without vaccination", which is vitally important for trade. Control actions are supplemented with measures to ensure a high-level of preparedness against the disease. The Commission is given a key role in managing an outbreak in partnership with the Member States and all Member States must comply with the terms of the new Directive by 30 June 2004. Of vital importance in the new law is the elevation of emergency vaccination to the forefront of disease-control strategy, although there is no departure from the EU's ban on prophylactic vaccination introduced in 1992.

In a number of other ways, European Union law is directly connected with FMD-related measures:

• Compensation: The European Commission provides compensation of up to 60% towards the costs of animals destroyed and disinfection etc. during an outbreak.
• Reducing the risk of virus introduction and spread: One of the EU's main tasks in the veterinary field is to improve the state of health of livestock. Protecting the more than 300 million susceptible animals which are vulnerable to the FMD virus requires measures to reduce the risk of virus introduction and spread. EU legislation restricts trade with third countries not free of FMD to products which have been treated against the virus. Border controls are in place intended to avoid contracting the FMD virus from affected third countries. Swill-feeding as a possible route of passing on the virus has increasingly been banned.
• Traceability: EU laws are in place which are intended to aid in disease eradication by making it possible to trace the movements of infected or potentially infected animals. In December 2003, the Council adopted a new package of measures on the identification of sheep, largely as a result of the weaknesses identified in the existing system during the 2001 FMD crisis.
• Animal transport: Any process which brings animals from different herds together in a single place or exposes them to large numbers of other animals increases the potential for the spread of disease. Partly as a result of the 2001 FMD crisis, the Commission has recently put forward new proposals to tighten up EU rules on the transport of animals.

II. What has the EPP-ED Group achieved ?

Setting up of a Temporary Committee on Foot and Mouth Disease in the European Parliament and major role in shaping the new FMD Directive

In January 2002, in the face of stiff opposition from the Socialist Group, the EPP-ED succeeding in establishing a Temporary Committee on Foot and Mouth Disease so as to properly learn the lessons of the 2001 Foot and Mouth crisis and to prevent such a disaster from happening again. On any measure, the Temporary Committee was a remarkable success for the Group. Skilfully led by Robert Sturdy (EPP-ED, UK), its Co-ordinator, Encarnación Redondo (EPP-ED, ESP), the Committee's Chairman and Albert Jan Maat (EPP-ED, NL), as Vice-Chairman, the Group made a telling impact on the hearings and fact-finding missions that formed the basis of the Committee's work. The Group ensured that the widest possible range of individuals were invited to give evidence at twenty public hearings organised in Brussels and Strasbourg. Thus, the world's leading scientific experts on FMD and key decision-makers such as government ministers and European Commissioners appeared before the Committee along with those who felt the brunt of the crisis on the ground, such as local farmers. All major FMD-related issues were rigorously examined. During the three fact-finding missions to the two worst-affected Member States, the EPP-ED succeeded in establishing the principle that these were occasions to hear from those who had thus far been denied the opportunity to be heard. While other political groups wished to restrict access to the meetings, the EPP-ED ensured that they were open to all. Over a thousand people attended the Temporary Committee's activities in these two countries.

In December 2002, Parliament adopted the Temporary Committee's final report by a crushing majority - only the British Labour Members voted against en bloc. The end report was highly critical of the UK Government's actions during the crisis and made a number of concrete recommendations for the future on key issues such as contingency planning, border controls and emergency vaccination. The European Commission delayed little in presenting a new legislative proposal on FMD control measures. In a very real sense, the EPP-ED had shaped the new legislation before it was published.

Parliament's consideration of the Commission's proposal reflected the consensus reached in the Temporary Committee. There was some questioning as to whether the Commission had been a little over-cautious with regard to the conditions for employing emergency vaccination and whether these conditions took non-disease-control aspects sufficiently into account. The text was also criticised for not going far enough in terms of avoiding mass culls where they entail significant negative effects on health, the environment and non-agricultural sectors of the rural economy. The Group succeeded, at Committee stage, in throwing out amendments that went too far in terms of limiting the authorities' room for manoeuvre in containing an outbreak, along with a number of populist amendments.

A hundred percent result in the May 2003 Plenary vote on the Commission's proposal sealed the Group's intensive work on FMD control - over one and a half years. The EPP-ED's line was followed entirely and the report was adopted with a resounding 409 votes in favour and only ten against. Parliament had fine-tuned the Commission's proposal, paving the way for the adoption of a very workable package by the Council in September 2003.


III. Our goals for the next legislative period

The European Union now has a vastly improved legal framework in place to deal with any future outbreak of FMD. However, EPP-ED Members are firmly convinced that there is an immediate need for measures to prevent a fresh crisis from emerging at all - especially in view of the new challenges in the fight against animal diseases presented by the enlargement of the European Union to twenty five. The European Union must make the improvement of controls at borders a real priority. The Temporary Committee revealed just how inadequate the current system is - a system which still allows thousands of tonnes of illegal meat and plant products to enter the European Union. A step in the right direction would be to give the Dublin-based Food and Veterinary Office the right resources to carry out inspections. Group Members are also eager to see more being invested into research to improve vaccines with the aim of developing a vaccine which needs to be administered only once and which covers as many different serotypes and subtypes as possible, builds up protection very quickly and blocks transmission of the virus in order to exclude carrier status. Finally, the Group will push to ensure that the new rules on animal transport minimise the risk of disease transmission and keep animals healthy.


Alwyn Strange, Adviser