EU to Push for GMO Foods Despite Opposition - Paper
Date: 21-Mar-05
Country: BELGIUM
Author: Jeremy Smith
Citing the lack of unanimity among the European Union's 25 member states on gene-altered crops, viewed by many European consumers as "Frankenstein foods", the EU executive plans to push new products through the system.
The document, obtained by Reuters, says the Commission should back the "continued submission of draft decisions for the placing on the market of new GMO products". It will need support from a majority in the 25-strong Commission to become policy.
This proposed position for the EU executive comes in the face of surveys that show 70 percent of European consumers oppose GMO foods, usually on health and environment grounds.
Only one EU country, Spain, grows substantial amounts of GMO crops and the continent as a whole remains a major holdout against the spread of the largely US-engineered plants, which are meant to increase yields and be resistant to pests.
Next week, the EU executive will debate the subject, hoping to end the policy vacuum that has existed since it took office in November. The discussion, slated for Tuesday, will be the Commission's first on biotechnology since January 2004.
Apart from guarded comments from some members of the new Commission, little of substance has been said on where the EU might head next with its policy on GMO crops and imports.
Six commissioners carry the most weight, since they are directly involved in GMO policy. They represent agriculture, environment, trade, research, industry and food safety.
The six will present a discussion document that calls for GMO authorisations to continue despite years of stalemate among governments, even after the EU lifted its six-year moratorium on approving new GMOs by a default legal procedure last year.
"So far, every single one of the 13 Commission proposals (for GMO approval) failed to get the required qualified (voting) majority, even for those GMOs not intended for cultivation, but for import and processing only," the draft document says.
"It is expected that ... the Commission will have to continue to take ultimate responsibility for adoption of pending decisions for the placing on the market of new GMO products, at least for the immediate future," it said.
Under the EU's decision-making process, if EU member states cannot agree after three months at ministerial level on allowing imports of a new GMO, then the Commission may rubberstamp an approval. This is how the EU moratorium was lifted in May 2004.
MEMBER STATES SPLIT
More and more countries now abstain in GMO votes, reducing the chances of agreement. A small group always votes in favour, such as Finland and the Netherlands; a counter-group, including Austria, Denmark, Greece and Luxembourg, always votes against. The rest either abstain or vary their vote.
The result is that no decision is taken, and it falls to the Commission to approve the new GMO, months later.
To avoid this, governments should be asked to "participate effectively in the process with a view to reaching clear positions", the Commission document said.
"They (the Commission) will be throwing it all back at the member states...and ask them what they think about it. But they won't get a steer from the member states because they are split," said Adrian Bebb at Friends of the Earth Europe.
In the meantime, several key GMO decisions are "on hold".
These include the Commission's approval of imports of a GMO rapeseed and a vote by ministers on several national GMO bans that the Commission wants lifted -- a highly sensitive area that raises the issue of national sovereignty. The draft document said the Commission would be likely to take the final decision on demanding that the bans be lifted, since it would be "difficult, if not impossible, to obtain a qualified majority either in favour or against".
Other issues to be raised next week will be thresholds for GMO content in seed batches, the World Trade Organisation case filed agai