"Hope for the best but prepare for the worst"

12.00.00am GMT Tue 21st Feb 2006

Graham Watson MEP (UK), leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament (ALDE group) is calling today for all Member States to cooperate fully with the European Commission in preparing their contingency plans for a possible wider spread of H5N1 virus in the EU.

Cases of H5N1 have been identified in eight Member States - Greece, Italy, Slovenia, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary and now possibly Slovakia as well as Bulgaria, Bosnia and Croatia.

"The EU has been here before. We have had a spate of animal health scares in recent years, including swine fever, BSE and most recently Foot & Mouth. In all these cases Member States were at odds with each and with the European Commission over the best way of handling the crisis. There must be no repetition of the foot and mouth catastrophe five years ago. The need for a coordinated, well prepared and coherent Europe-wide response is overwhelming", said Watson. "We need to hope for the best whilst preparing for the worst," he concluded.

Jan Mulder (VVD, NL) ALDE member of EP agriculture committee and former Vice President of the EP temporary committee investigating the foot and mouth crisis said: "If the 2001 Foot & Mouth crisis showed us anything it is that vaccination plays a key role in limiting the spread of disease. An important addition to that end is that any vaccinated strategy applied should be properly able to distinguish between vaccinated and infected animals. The EU needs to invest money and resources in developing intelligent marker vaccines that will enable us to control disease without affecting exports."

"The question of compensation to livestock farmers is also a recurring issue every time that Europe faces a threat of this nature. There can be no question of distorting the market through unjustified state aid but as long as the EU determines the strategy of disease control, it should also offer compensation for those measures," added Mulder

Georgs Andrejevs (Latvia's Way), member of the EP environment committee called specifically for the EU to agree on a rapid response to any outbreak of avian flu: "The Council should agree that if any Member State confirms the presence of the H5N1 in its domestic poultry in the coming weeks or months they should impose an immediate ban on movement of such livestock within and from its national territory to limit the risk of spreading the virus," he said. "Since the WHO yesterday pointed to evidence in SE Asia of the virus mutating it is all the more important that the EU now agree a coordinated response to the avian flu threat without delay."