Aquaculture animals: animal health requirements, prevention and control of certain diseases

2005/0153(CNS)

 The committee adopted the report by Heinz KINDERMANN (PES, DE) broadly approving the proposed directive on animal health requirements for aquaculture animals and products and on the prevention and control of certain diseases in aquatic animals. MEPs adopted a number of mainly technical amendments under the consultation procedure, adding some requirements of traceability of an animal's origin, introducing a detailed procedure to be followed for declaring a zone disease-free after an outbreak, stipulating that the purchase and use of antibiotics to combat certain diseases in fish must comply with EU legislation in force, and proposing that licences be granted to individual establishments rather than to businesses. Lastly, given the scale of the organisational changes involved, the committee wanted to allow Member States an extra year to transpose and implement the directive, saying that the dates proposed by the Commission were over-ambitious. It therefore stipulated that Member States should adopt and publish the necessary provisions by 30 June 2007 rather than 30 June 2006, and apply them from 1 January 2008 rather than from 1 January 2007 as originally proposed. It also called for the Commission to provide an assessment of the directive's application within two and a half years of its entry into force.