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It is a pleasure to join you in Belfast today for this important congress. I would like to congratulate our hosts for putting together a very interesting programme of topics for discussion. And for putting together a truly impressive and well organised series of events. It is important that we use the occasion to build a better understanding of the key challenges confronting agriculture. This in turn requires honest and frank discussions.
I am very conscious that recent times have witnessed fundamental changes to agriculture. The succession of reform packages begun under Ray MacSharry and continued by my Commission colleague, Franz Fischler, have radically changed the Common Agricultural Policy. And I am convinced that these changes have been for the better.
It was simply not tenable to continue with the support mechanisms of the past. Not because of external factors, although these were clearly an influence. But because Europe's citizens could not tolerate for ever systems which encouraged production to the exclusion of other priorities. A system which saw the vast bulk of the CAP budget devoted to supporting beef mountains and milk lakes was always living on borrowed time.
The changes of the past decade are going in the right direction. Certainly, there are winners and losers in the process. But in one respect, in particular, the changes are fundamentally right. Agriculture is no longer seen only as a means of food production. Instead, it is seen as fundamental to other key societal goals such as food safety and quality, animal welfare, environmental protection, sustainability, rural development and the preservation of the landscape.
The CAP has been re-oriented to reflect this changed priority. You are familiar with the figures: the bulk of the CAP budget almost 90% - was once spent on production supports. When the current series of changes are fully complete this figure will instead be spent on direct payments to farmers and on rural development measures.
These changes should radically change the public perception of farmers and of farming in general. The past support mechanisms did huge damage to the image of your sector. And I might add, to the image of Europe and the European institutions.
The public saw a poor return for their money, reflected in the stock-piling of surplus commodity products. The perception was that farmers produced for intervention rather than for the market. Any market which allows the key link between producer and consumer to wither and die is living on borrowed time.
This situation could not continue and I am convinced that it was never in your interests that it should. Farmers can now, instead, point to their wider role and their huge and important contribution to society. This in turn improves your image and the defence for the support mechanisms which you enjoy. You can and should highlight that you not only produce food but also meet the other expectations of society which I mentioned earlier.
I am not blind to the allegations that this change of direction in the CAP is a case of "smoke and mirrors" or an elaborate mechanism to protect alleged "subsidies" from attack under the WTO. These allegations do not stand up to scrutiny.
The changes are not cosmetic and are certainly not unconditional. Instead have been accompanied by rigorous, time consuming and costly requirements to ensure that the food safety, environmental, and other requirements of the re-oriented CAP are met in full. Society expects a lot of you and you have a right to expect that in turn you will receive due reward for your efforts to meet these expectations.
A key expectation is, of course, food safety. The succession of food safety crisis and animal health crisis BSE, dioxin, foot and mouth disease have driven this process.
It is fair to say that these crisis have had an impact not only on farming but on society in general. I am convinced that BSE, in particular, has changed consumers perceptions on key issues such as risk, science and regulation. In many respects BSE has done to the image of food and farming what thalidomide did to the image of the pharmaceutical industry four decades ago.
Consumers now insist on food safety. It is not a cliché or a self serving observation. My two years in my present Office have left me in no doubt that it is priority number one for consumers. Policymakers have not missed this trend and I can think of no Member State where food safety is not now a very important political priority. There is rightly a high political cost to pay for failure in this area.
This political climate has created the momentum for deep and fundamental changes in our approach towards food safety. First and foremost, there is a clear consensus that food safety should not take second place to market considerations. This suspicion existed, with good cause, in the past when key decisions were taken with an eye to their impact on the market rather than on the safety of produce.
The damage from this damage is deep and long-lasting. It has called into question our whole approach towards farming and food production. It is hard to escape the conclusion that consumer confidence in the credibility of our scientific and regulatory regimes and of our systems of agricultural production suffered a huge blow.
These crisis have very complex and confused origins. They were often handled in an inept and misguided manner. And, not infrequently the media exploited the crisis to make good news copy to sell newspapers and win higher viewer ratings. Others exploited the crisis for political advantage often to their subsequent cost!
But, the end result has been a damaged image of agriculture and the farming sector.
There is always a temptation in such circumstances to point the finger of blame at others. This is not a sentiment I have seen in farmers. One of most striking features of my two years in Office has been the stoic nature of the farming community. I have the firm conviction that you are now increasingly looking to the future rather than to the past.
That does, however, require learning from the mistakes of the past. And I include the European Commission and the European institutions in general in this learning process. We cannot escape our role and responsibility in both past mistakes and future solutions. We are all in this together and can only get out of it together.
The increased profile of food safety is very clearly in evidence at the European level. It is reflected in the substantial Treaty changes which gave the Community a much more powerful role to deliver on consumer expectations. It is reflected in the structural changes in the organisation of the Commission itself with the carving-out of a distinct and new Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection under my political responsibility.
The Commission strategy on food safety should, at this stage, be clear. It is comprehensively outlined in the White Paper on Food Safety and in the flood of legislative proposals which have followed from that initiative. To put it at its simplest, it is to ensure that food is safe throughout the production process, from farm to table.
I am not going to list the very comprehensive list of legislation which has been enacted or proposed over the past two years. You are professionals in this field and very up to date with our work. But, I am convinced that it is impressive not only in its quantity but in its quality and ambition. If it is respected this legislation can genuinely ensure that food is indeed safe from farm to table.
The proposed European Food Authority is a corner-stone in our new approach. Its core purpose the provision of sound, independent and up-to-date scientific advice - is fundamental to the Commission's vision of a European system of food production which puts safety at its core.
Very substantial progress has been made in agreeing the role and structure of the Authority. The objective of the Heads of Government of having it up and running by the beginning of next year must be respected. I will be calling on the Member States, at the Internal Market Council later this week, and on the European Parliament to match the Commission's determination in meeting this deadline.
The farm to table approach towards food safety has not been chosen lightly. It makes sense. A very clear lesson from recent years has been that the overall system is only as strong as its weakest link. Food reaches our tables through a very long and complex production chain. Any failing in that chain can and does undermine the good work and high standards elsewhere in the chain.
This is self-evident. You need quality inputs fertilisers, feedingstuffs, seeds, breeding stock whatever to product quality output. Your quality produce, in turn, has to be properly transported, processed, marketed and stored if it is to meet consumers expectations of food safety.
My objective is to ensure that all reasonable safeguard measures are in place to ensure that the food production chain is safe. We simply cannot afford the costs political, economic and most of all in terms of human health of a repeat of disasters such as BSE.
I am convinced that a lot of progress has been made in recent years to avoid such a repeat. We are systematically putting in place a body of legislation which closes the loopholes and strengthens the defences against threats to food safety.
I do have serious concerns, however, that this legislative framework is not enough. Its Achilles heel is not difficult to find: implementation. Member States have the best of intentions in supporting such legislation. The resolve and resources to see it properly implemented does not unfortunately always match up to these intentions.
The reports of the Food and Veterinary Office, systematically published on the Internet, frequently reveal important weaknesses in the implementation of Community legislation on veterinary, phytosanitary and food safety provisions. These weaknesses have the potential to create real problems for food safety and animal health if they are not decisively tackled.
The Commission continues to maintain the pressure on Member States and third countries to do better. But it is not always having the desired impact. There are a number of contributory factors in this lack of progress. One of the biggest is that the Commission simply does not have the necessary "clout" or sanctions to ensure better respect of the legislation in question.
Essentially, the best we can do is to initiate legal proceedings. But that is a long and cumbersome process and too slow and ineffective in delivering results. The Commission is reflecting on a number of options in this respect in forthcoming draft proposals on the issue of controls on veterinary and food safety legislation.
It is important that the issue is confronted head-on. I am not prepared to continue with a situation where there are important weaknesses in implementation of legislation which leave consumers vulnerable to potential health risks. All Member States have an obligation, not only to their own citizens but to citizens throughout the EU, to make greater efforts in this area.
Clearly, the Commission would prefer to find solutions by negotiation and through consent. But if our efforts do not succeed, we have the responsibility to consider more drastic actions. One which comes to mind is financial penalties.
There are precedents. Several years ago, the image of the CAP and the Commission suffered from allegations often substantiated of poor controls on expenditure, overwhelmingly in the Member States themselves. A key initiative in putting matters right was the introduction of penalties where Member States were found to be making insufficient efforts to respect their obligations under Community law.
Consumers can legitimately ask why a similar approach is not followed where food safety obligations are not respected. Member States face financial penalties for poor implementation of market support measures where public health is not at risk. Yet they risk only legal action, with a long drawn out outcome, where food safety obligations are not implemented. They are right to ask if we have got the balance right in this respect.
This is not an issue which will go away and which will have to be confronted sooner or later. Solutions will have to be found to the current weaknesses in implementation. It is an issue which Franz Fischler and I have been confronted with again and again in the course of the Food Quality Round Table which we have undertaken in the national capitals of the Member States.
I would hope that I can count on your support in this respect. Farmers suffer directly and directly from failures in food safety as many of you know to your cost. You should be active in pressing your national authorities to strictly implement the Community legislation in place to ensure that food is safe.
Even if that requires sanctions and losses for some of your members who potentially threaten the interests of your wider membership. I think that you have to be ruthless in tackling any tolerance of poor standards. It is the responsible approach and the approach which will ultimately ensure that consumers have full confidence in your produce.
I am close to concluding. Let me repeat again that farmers must adjust to their wider role in society. I think you have been too slow and timid in bringing home to the public that you are more than primary food producers. You have a hugely valuable and important role to play in fulfilling important expectations of society on food safety, animal welfare, the environment and the rural landscape and structure.
If you succeed, you can in turn legitimately expect that society rewards you for this role. Directly and indirectly. You need, therefore, to sell the strengths of your members better to a public which can be convinced that farming deserves their support and confidence.
Thank you for your attention.