Doc. 8646
4 February 2000

Prohibition of growth hormones in meat

Motion for a recommendation

presented by Mr Behrendt and others

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the members who have signed it

1. Since 1989, the European Union has been in conflict with – mainly – the United States over the former’s refusal to import hormone-treated meat, following its own ban on the use of growth hormones in animal feed. The United States consider such meat healthy and safe for human consumption, whereas the European Union is much more circumspect and still has reservations pending the findings of scientific research in progress.

2. The World Trade Organisation has for the time being found in favour of the United States and inflicted financial penalties on the European Union. The United States have instituted reprisals against some 100 items of European farm produce.

3. European consumers, recently alarmed by several food crises and particularly watchful with regard to their food, urge the European authorities to apply the precautionary principle until such time as the awaited scientific guarantees are forthcoming. Europe’s meat producers are opposed to unfair competition from meat produced using hormones to promote growth.

4. In 1999 the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures relating to Public Health found that there was a potential risk to human health from hormone residues in beef. The European Parliament pronounced in favour of maintaining the ban on hormone-treated meat, the highest possible level of food safety, the greatest transparency and the publication of scientific debate.

5. The Parliamentary Assembly considers it unacceptable to place on the market foodstuffs presenting the slightest risk for human health. When in doubt, scientific studies must confirm the harmlessness of any foodstuff and the precautionary principle must be applied in the absence of confirmed findings.

6. The Assembly, which supports the position of the European Union, and in particular the European Parliament, on this issue, cannot conceive of a Europe in one part of which (the EU)consumers’ health is better or more strictly protected, whilst in the other they are at the mercy of foodstuffs harmful to their health.

7. The Assembly has already spoken out in favour of co-ordination between the European Union and the Council of Europe with regard to measures to protect European health (and particularly food safety) and draws attention in this respect to its Recommendations 1389 (1998) and 1417 (1999).

8. The Assembly therefore recommends that the Committee of Ministers:

- support the position of the European Union, apply the precautionary principle to the production and importation of hormone-treated meat, pending the findings of scientific research in progress;

- draft a European outline convention on food safety;

- promote (in co-operation with the European Union)a European Food Safety Agency (Authority);

- invite the member states to accede to the Council of Europe’s Partial Agreement in the Social and Public Health Field and the European Convention for the protection of Animals kept for Farming Purposes (T-AP).

Signed : ¹

Behrendt, Germany, SOC

Čiupaila, Lithuania, LDR

Etherington, United Kingdom, SOC

Gonzalez Laxe, Spain, SOC

Goulet, France, EDG

Hornung, Germany, EPP/CD

Kitov, Bulgaria, EPP/CD

Korkeaoja, Finland, LDR

Loule, Greece, UEL

Michels, Germany, EPP/CD

Mikaelsson, Sweden, UEL

Radiç, Croatia, EPP/CD

Robol, Italy, EPP/CD

¹        SOC: Socialist Group

      EPP/CD: Group of the European People’s Party

      EDG: European Democratic Group

      LDR : Liberal, Democratic and Reformers’ Group

      UEL: Group of the Unified European Left

      NR: not registered in a group