At the first reading of the European Parliament, the Commission stated that it could accept some or parts of the amendments requested by the European Parliament, but had to reject others. The modified Commission proposal was drafted consequently. The common position does not incorporate European Parliament amendments that were rejected by the Commission.
A substantial number of additional changes have been included in the common position as a result of discussions in the Council after the first reading of the European Parliament. They relate in particular to the scope of the Community targets, the timetable for implementation of the Regulation and the financial aspects.
The Council, the European Parliament and the Commission agree that the Regulation should establish certain basic principles. In particular, the three Institutions agree that the Regulation should:
- provide a flexible framework allowing the progressive extension of control measures to additional animal populations and pathogens; and
- in principle, cover all stages of the food chain.
The Commission states that it will not propose any measure that would reduce the guarantees granted to Finland and Sweden upon their accession to the Community.
It also declares that targets for stages of the food chain after primary production will generally be laid down through comitology pursuant to Article 4 of the proposed Regulation on the hygiene of foodstuffs. These will supplement the targets for table eggs and poultry meat contained in the proposed Regulation on the control of zoonoses (which may themselves be modified or supplemented through comitology).
Lastly, the Commission declares that the envisaged order of the Community targets for pigs may be reversed if the evaluation of the available evidence indicates that this would be more appropriate.�