12 Identification and registration of
cattle
| (26141)
14730/04
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| Special Report No. 6/2004 by the Court of Auditors on the organisation of the system for the identification and registration of bovine animals in the European Union
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| Legal base | — |
| Deposited in Parliament | 23 November 2004
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| Department | Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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| Basis of consideration | EM of 6 December 2004
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| Previous Committee Report | None
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| To be discussed in Council | No date set
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared
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Background
12.1 Although a number of Member States had set up, on their own
initiative, cattle identification and registration systems prior
to 1992, the reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy agreed
then appreciably increased the incidence of direct aids available
to the livestock sector,[36]
and hence the need for a new compulsory Community-wide system
to improve controls over budgetary expenditure and enable checks
to be carried out under the Integrated Administration and Control
System (IACS). This new system should have been operational on
1 October 1993, and the IACS database by 1 January 1997, though
the majority of Member States met neither of these deadlines.
12.2 In the event, however, animal health problems,
notably the BSE crisis, led the Council to review these provisions,
and to seek the traceability of cattle from birth to slaughter,
and from slaughterhouse to product distributor. Accordingly, it
decided in 1997 to reinforce the existing legislation by requiring
all cattle born, imported or intended for intra-Community trade
to be given an identification number and registered as from 1
January 1998; by requiring fully operational computerised databases
making it possible to trace cattle from birth to slaughter or
death as from 31 December 1999; and by introducing on 1 January
2000 a compulsory labelling scheme for beef. However, as the Court
observes, difficulties in defining labelling standards and other
practical constraints resulted in the last of these deadlines
being postponed until 1 January 2002.
12.3 In this document, the Court of Auditors has
examined the design of the identification and registration system
and the controls carried out by the Commission to verify its correct
implementation in the Member States. It also aimed to verify
that an effective system for identifying and registering cattle
had been established, and to evaluate whether the regulations
setting up the system had made it possible to achieve the prescribed
objectives. It does not consider the provisions on labelling.
The current document
12.4 The report notes that the identification and
registration system has four main components—
ear tags bearing a unique code, making it possible to identify
each animal individually (together with the holding on which it
was born); passports containing this information, and intended
to accompany any movements of the animal; individual registers
kept on each holding; and computerised databases set up in every
Member State, making it possible at any given time to find the
identification numbers of all the cattle on a given holding, and
all the movements of all the animals from birth (or importation).
Those Member States with databases deemed by the Commission to
be fully operational may decide to discontinue issuing passports
for internal movements of cattle, and they may also reduce from
10% to 5% the incidence of on-the-spot checks. The report also
notes that the main responsibility for implementation rests with
the Member States, which are required to define and administer
the ear tags and the format of the farm registers, to issue the
animal passports, to lay down the procedures for declaring cattle
movements in order to keep their national database up to date,
and to carry out on-the-spot checks on keepers of cattle.
12.5 The Court considers a number of aspects of the
arrangements. First, as regards the design of the system at
Community level, it notes that:
- although the Commission had
proposed a transparent procedure for the exchange of data between
Member States on animal movements, the legislation adopted by
the Council contains no such provision, and, although batches
of animals transported can be identified, this is not the case
with individual animals;
- any such exchange of data is in any case compromised
by the different format of the data assembled in the different
Member States, and in particular by different systems of identification
numbers;
- the drafting of the legislation is in places
imprecise, particularly as regards what comprises a keeper of
animals, and the obligations which keepers must fulfil;
- although passports of dead animals or those exported
to another Member State must be returned to the issuing authority,
the mechanisms for achieving this are ineffective, and contain
no provision for invalidating passports which have been returned;
and
- it is sometimes difficult to establish a link
with the country or holding of origin.
The Court concludes that, as it stands, the system
does not guarantee the traceability of animals moving from one
Member State to another, or into and out of the Community.
12.6 Secondly, the Court comments on the management
of the system at Community level, where it notes that, although
the Commission can introduce implementing rules governing ear
tags, passports, registers, on-the-spot checks, and administrative
sanctions, it has no legal competence to do so as regards the
setting up and management of the national databases, it being
confined in such cases simply to assessing whether a particular
database is fully operational. Furthermore, it notes that, even
here, Community legislation does not lay down the conditions for
such recognition. The Court also observes that, although the
database in Northern Ireland has been recognised as fully operational,
that is not the case in Great Britain, where a draft decision
proposing 1 April 2002 as the operative date was suspended because
of weaknesses found. It adds that the bases in question are incompatible,
and that the setting up of two such bases in a single Member State,
with one recognised by the Commission, and the other not, is not
in conformity with the Community legislation. (On a separate
point, the Court also notes that, whereas animals eligible for
the special measures taken following the BSE crisis must in all
other Member States be identified and registered, this is not
the case in the UK, where the measures in question were adopted
earlier.)
12.7 The Court's report also considers the supervision
exercised by the Commission. It points out that responsibility
for identification and registration has since 1999 rested with
the Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection, whereas
the control and payment of animal premiums is a matter for the
Agriculture Directorate-General (which also has responsibilities
for the clearance of accounts on the related budgetary expenditure).
This has given rise to problems of co-ordination between the
Directorates, and the Court notes that, although non-compliance
with the provisions on identification and registration does not
involve any financial penalties, such penalties do exist in the
case of IACS expenditure.
12.8 Thirdly, the Court has reported on the results
of its audits in the four Member States[37]
it visited during the preparation of its report. In
particular, it notes that:
- although the quantities of
ear tags distributed to farmers should cover requirements for
no more than one year, this condition was not always observed,
and that an inadequate evaluation was made of the quality of the
tags;
- farm registers were not always in the format
laid down, and did not include all the information required;
- passport formats varied considerably, making
it difficult for farmers to understand those issued in a different
Member State; and
- mechanisms for detecting anomalies in information
on movements of animals also varied considerably.
12.9 In the light of its various findings, the Court
recommended that:
- the legislative framework should
make provision for systematic exchanges of information between
databases in the Member States, so that intra-Community movements
of cattle can be traced in the way envisaged;
- procedures for checking and returning passports
to the issuing body should be implemented;
- the Commission should be authorised to adopt
common rules governing the operation of Member States' databases
and their inter-connection; and
- the procedure for recognising databases should
be strengthened by re-defining the criteria which must be met,
and with the Commission carrying out regular checks to ensure
that they are fully operational.
The Government's view
12.10 In his Explanatory Memorandum of 6 December
2004, the Minister for Nature Conservation and Fisheries at the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Ben Bradshaw)
says that the UK welcomes this report, and agrees with the Court
that the Commission should set common standards and harmonise
data exchange between Member States. It also considers that the
Commission's approach of providing guidance is the most useful,
whilst allowing Member States freedom to adopt the practices most
appropriate their industry. In particular, whilst the Minister
agrees that further commonality is desirable, especially in relation
to intra-Community trade, he says that the UK would not want the
Commission to prepare detailed implementing legislation, database
design or operational practices.
12.11 The Minister also comments on the Court's observations
about the position within the UK. He says that its criticisms
have been discussed with the Food and Veterinary Office and the
National Audit Office, and that a substantial action plan to improve
the reliability of the data in Great Britain was reported to the
Committee of Public Accounts. He suggests that, as a result,
substantial progress has been made, with the introduction of an
improved IT platform, the cleansing of the data held, provision
of regular statements to farmers of their database records, and
further education and information. He adds that greater integration
between the working practices of the databases in Great Britain
and Northern Ireland has been established, including access to
the respective databases to assist the tracing of animals moving
between the two, and that more generally a programme of work continues
with the aim of obtaining full accreditation of the Great Britain
Cattle Tracing Scheme database.
Conclusion
12.12 As is often the case, the Court of Auditors
has identified a number of significant points where the implementation
of Community legislation has fallen short of expectations, including
in this case in the UK. We therefore think it right to draw those
criticisms to the attention of the House. However, given the
steps which have since been taken by the Government to address
the Court's observations, at least so far as they directly affect
the UK, we do not think any further consideration is called for,
and we are therefore clearing the document.
36 There are 81 million cattle in the Community, of
which 20.5 million are in France, followed by Germany and the
UK, with 14.0 and 10.4 million respectively. In 2004, budgetary
provision for the beef regime was €8,100 million, accounting
for 17% of total agricultural expenditure, of which €7,300
million comprised direct aids. Back
37
France, Germany, Italy and the UK (Great Britain). Back
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