Animal diseases: vaccination against bluetongue

2010/0326(COD)

The Council adopted its position at first reading with a view to the adoption of the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2000/75/EC as regards vaccination against bluetongue.

The Council's position confirms the objectives proposed by the Commission and incorporates the quasi-totality of the European Parliament's first-reading amendments.

Legal basis: the Council shares the European Parliament's view that Article 43(2) of TFEU is the correct legal basis for this Directive. This line was confirmed by Coreper (Part I), which, following the advice of the Council Legal Service against the use of a derived legal basis for this proposal, decided at its meeting on 26 January 2011 to propose to the European Parliament such modification of the legal basis by the co-legislators, as the Commission services were unable to commit to rapid re-submission of the proposal with this modified legal basis.

The Council's position introduces changes to the European Parliament's first-reading opinion only in two areas:

  • while all other proposed requirements related to the communication of national provisions to the Commission are maintained in the Council's position, the specific obligation to use correlation tables is deleted;
  • the other change concerns the deadline for the national transposition of the Directive.