Scots MEPs’ anger over egg ban ‘complacency’

Scottish MEPs emerged from this week’s meeting of the European Parliament agriculture committee, raging at Commissioner John Dalli over his “relaxed” attitude to member states’ non-compliance with the ban on battery cages for hens and the import of illegally produced eggs, following the legal deadline of 1 January 2012.

Dalli announced that the only action he was proposing to take on illegal cages was to reallocate inspectors and step up inspections.

To the embarrassment of the Italian chair of the committee, Paulo De Castro, he confirmed that Italy, along with Hungary, Latvia, Spain and Greece, had not even transmitted their updated data on the implementation to the Commission yet.

He further confirmed that Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Poland, Portugal and Romania had intimated they would not be compliant by the time the new legislation came into being.

George Lyon MEP described the commissioner’s attitude as complacent and complained that “so far all we have heard from the commission is promises to collect data and lots of hand wringing”.

Alyn Smith MEP said Scottish egg producers who had converted to egg production systems that complied with the new legislation should not be undercut by “illegal imported eggs.”