Clock begins to tick for Santer’s BSE reforms

Date: 20/02/1997

By Rory Watson

EUROPEAN Commissioners will spend the next nine months putting into place a series of reforms which they hope will convince MEPs not to carry out their threat to dismiss Jacques Santer's team from office.

Unless the European Commission president and his colleagues can convince the Parliament that they have put in place adequate defences to prevent future crises like that sparked by BSE, they face the prospect of a motion of censure towards the end of the year.

Although MEPs were not due to vote on a proposed censure motion until today (20 February), it was clear last night that an overwhelming majority of members was opposed to punishing the Commission immediately for its mishandling of events.

Passing preliminary judgement on the year-long inquiry into the mad cow crisis yesterday (19 February), MEPs voted to delay their final verdict until November.

While several Commissioners are clearly unhappy about the sword of Damocles which now hangs over them, Santer successfully defused much of the tension by admitting that errors had been made in the past and by calling for radical reform “involving nothing short of a revolution in our way of looking at food and agriculture”.

Flanked by one of the largest-ever turnouts of Commissioners for a parliamentary debate, Santer criticised the earlier relentless drive to reduce production costs and called for the Common Agricultural Policy to be turned into “a proper food policy which gives pride of place to consumer protection and consumer health”.

Santer sought to win over parliamentary support by indicating that MEPs would have greater influence over future legislative proposals on animal and plant health. He also suggested the Parliament should be given equal legislative rights with member states on all aspects of agricultural policy - a radical suggestion which French European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier immediately condemned.

A series of internal administrative changes will now be implemented to strengthen Consumer Commissioner Emma Bonino's control over food health issues.

And in a clear signal that the investigation may now target the role of individual Commission officials, Santer confirmed that if “any instances of conduct meriting sanctions” were uncovered, those concerned would be suitably punished.

The Commission was not the only target of parliamentary criticism in a resolution adopted yesterday by 422 votes to 49, with 48 abstentions. The UK government was also widely condemned and other member states were accused of giving “tacit support” to the UK, while the Dutch EU presidency was roundly criticised for failing to attend this week's debate.

In arguing against an immediate censure motion on the Commission, the leaders of the Parliament's main political groups had earlier insisted it would be both premature and counter-productive.

“I do not think it is a sensible political strategy to censure the Commission before it has had a chance to put its house in order. A successful censure motion would lead to an institutional crisis which would last for months and not do anything to help people, improve health or cleanse the system,” insisted the Socialist Group leader Pauline Green.

Her Christian Democrat counterpart Wilfried Martens struck a similar tone when he told MEPs: “We need a root and branch reform and Europe would be better served if we did that rather than replace the Commission en masse.”

The call by some MEPs for a full frontal attack on Santer and his colleagues was led by Belgian Socialist José Happart, a prominent member of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the BSE crisis.

“I am not a demagogue. I am simply defending the health and future of our peoples. I say to you, President Santer, that you have a choice between the honour of resigning or the dishonour of staying where you are. Stop humiliating yourself by trying to justify the unjustifiable,” he thundered.

But, with the majority of members prepared to put the Commission on nine months' probation, Happart's call for an immediate vote of censure against the Commission only attracted support from Communist MEPs and a scattering of French, Danish and Spanish members.