Green groups stir as ministers put GM food on Council menu

Date: 01/12/05

Green groups are pressing EU ministers to toughen up draft laws at an Environment Council meeting on Friday (2 December).

They are relying on governments to side with them on several issues in a packed agenda.

At the request of Denmark, ministers will debate Europe's attitude towards genetically modified (GM) foods for the first time since a moratorium on approvals was lifted last year.

Denmark in the last GM authorisation vote came out in favour of approval, rather than abstaining as in previous votes. Several figures in the biotechnology industry hope Friday's debate will end with more pro-GM sentiment.

But an open letter to ministers from Greenpeace, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and Friends of the Earth says governments should take this chance to "demand a suspension of all GMO authorisations".

A 15-page letter from the EEB, meanwhile, flags up several areas where ministers should be more ambitious than the European Commission.

First the EEB cites the thematic strategy on air pollution, which governments will debate for the first time since its adoption by the Commission in September. The EEB wants a "significantly higher ambition level for the strategy". Notably, the group wants strict new standards for pollution by small dust particles (PM2.5).

A September communication on CO2 emission from aeroplanes is also described as "insufficient". The communication was published as a first step towards including airlines in the EU's CO2 emission trading scheme, as a way of helping Europe meet its carbon reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Ministers are scheduled to adopt their conclusions at this month's Council. The EEB, together with transport NGO T&E, says emissions trading on its own will not be enough to cut emissions and ministers should also indicate support for a CO2-based aviation tax.

But bird protection group Birdlife congratulated the UK presidency on its proposal to fund wildlife conservation under a scheme known as Life+, which will finance environmental projects under the 2007-13 EU budget.

As proposed by the Commission, nature protection would have been funded instead through rural development funds - a move Birdlife interpreted as jeopardising the protection of birds and their habitats.

Birdlife EU policy head Clairie Papazoglou said she thought ministers were likely to support the UK proposal on 2 December. She warned however that the success of Life+ depended on its not being squeezed under ongoing EU budget negotiations: "What we wouldn't want is to see this very minimal budget cut still further."

Preview of the EU's Environment Council, meeting on 2 December 2005. Among the items to be debated were genetically modified (GM) foods, CO2 emissions from aeroplanes and a CO2-based aviation tax and wildlife conservation (Life+).

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