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TTIP talks: What’s cooking?
- Perspectives on Food & Farming
Proceedings of the Conference
“We should change the way we look at regulation. Regulation
reflects the concerns and values of citizens on issues like food
safety and animal welfare. They should not be considered as
a trade barrier.
We should focus on quality and not quantity
.
Through trade policies we should be looking at more
sustainable, healthier and equitable food systems.”
Olga Kikou, Compassion in World Farming
The first panellist,
Olga Kikou
(Manager of European
Affairs, Compassion in World Farming)
expressed
concerns relating to the substantial differences in regula-
tion on Animal Welfare in the EU and the US, and the
potential effects of TTIP in the field of animal welfare. The
cumulative voices of citizens concerned with animal wel-
fare and health standards has led to change and series
of legislative provisions in animal welfare.
The EU has made substantial progress over the years
and recognises animals as sentient beings in the EU
Treaty. Further legislation - e.g bans on cruel practices,
bans on using non-therapeutic antibiotics and hormones
as growth promoters and current proposal bans on
cloned animals in the food supply - echoes this positive
development. The EU is the most advanced region in the
world in terms of animal welfare legislation to protect
farm animals.
The US lags far behind the EU in protecting farm animals.
In stark contrast to the EU, there is no legislation at fed-
eral level governing animal welfare on the farm and mini-
mal legislation at state level. In view of this difference, it is
difficult to see how can there be regulatory convergence
in this case. A push for harmonisation and mutual rec-
ognition of standards, would greatly undermine existing
EU legislation, lead to a sharp lowering of standards
and hurt European farmers because they would not be
able to compete with their American counterparts – and
undermine progress made.
In conclusion,
Olga Kikou
stressed that our decision makers
must show vision, listen to the voices of citizens and challenge
agribusiness. The newly appointed Commissioner for Trade Cecilia
Malmström, recently indicated that
TTIP is really about setting new
global standards
, the question is then, what standards we will set
for the rest of the world.
Harmonizing rules and standards – a race to the bottom?
Bart Staes
, Member of the European Parliament and the Committee on
Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) introduced the panel-
lists and explained the objective of the panel, which is to provide clear
examples of different food and farming standards applied in the EU and
US.