We are working on the assumption that it is also the H5N1 virus and all the measures have been adopted with that in mind.

That aid is yet to be agreed by the ACP countries. We certainly expect Nigeria to benefit from part of these funds, to help them in their fight of this disease.

Food producers are responsible for controlling every link in the production chain and making sure that only healthy food products arrive on the market.

Many of those questions are being discussed at ministerial level. You don’t get answers to sensitive political questions during an exercise.

The establishment of these risk areas will help to define a disaster-free part of the country, which is obviously good for trade purposes.

Some member states don’t share [the view] that it is necessary at the moment to adopt this measure at the European level.

We have offered all assistance possible.

We are taking the additional precaution of defining high-risk areas to act as a buffer zone between infected areas and unaffected parts of a member state.

The key to this problem is early detection and rapid action.

There will be a discussion on international coordination.

It’s in the industry’s own interest to come up with concrete commitments if it doesn’t want to face a patchwork of different market conditions across the E.U.. Now these commitments must be monitored, and that’s...

That ban remains in force.

We are concerned enough that we have instituted this ban to avoid risking importing the disease into the EU from an infected country. But we are not able to say what type of virus we...

The likelihood is that we will have to reintegrate Sweden into the European regime.

Coexistence measures are designed to ensure that GM crops can be grown alongside non-GM crops without negative economic consequences caused by accidental mixing of the two.

Research shows that this particular avian flu virus can be transmitted to humans who are in direct contact with the infected animal.

A number of samples have to be taken from both wild and domestic birds in each member state, and the type of tests that will be done.

We cannot lower our guard.

This legislation is not related to the current case of contamination in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

The Commission has been informed by the European Union reference laboratory … that the virus isolated in wild birds in Croatia is indeed the H5N1 virus.

We don’t have avian influenza in commercial poultry in the European Union and we consider that poultry meat and eggs, especially when properly cooked, pose no risk to human health,

Such an exercise had never been carried out on this scale, it was a full-blown scenario with the worst that we could be confronted with.

In the case of Bulgaria, we will be sending some laboratory and veterinary experts, who will likely leave this weekend. For Turkey, the experts we will send are likely to be specialists in epidemiology.

The European Commission has so far received no information which suggests the UK authorities have breached the requirements. The UK authorities are still investigating the circumstances in this case and the Commission will wait for...

We hope this will rally member states around the authorization process. We want practical improvements in the system.

The vaccine may be appropriate in Asia, but our first response would definitely be culls and quarantines.

These import measures … ensure that poultry products on sale in the EU do not pose a risk for consumers.

We welcome the fact that an important actor in the food and drinks industry has put forward concrete commitments.

The main conclusion of the report is that there appears to be no justification at this time for EU-wide legislation.

The aim of these national surveillance programs is to provide early detection of cases of avian influenza, particularly in wild birds and poultry in the European Union.

There was an extensive discussion on the possibility of the disease spreading into the EU via migratory birds that might pose a risk of spreading the virus. The group concluded that the immediate risk is...

There are disadvantages if vaccination is not done in a controlled way. Animals that are inadequately vaccinated may contract the virus anyway and continue to spread it.

Veterinary controls on the farm and at slaughter, and the flow of information from stable to table, protect EU consumers against any potential risk,

The Finnish chief veterinary officer said this is not the H5N1 virus. This is a mild, low-pathogenic strain of avian influenza that is commonly found in wild birds.

The samples are now expected to arrive at the Community Reference Laboratory late on Friday and so results can only be expected by Saturday afternoon, not before.

I believe the Danish authorities are shortly about to announce that the tests conducted so far are negative.