Commission snubs US complaints over GM food labelling

Date: 03/10/02

By Karen Carstens

THE European Commission has rejected complaints from the US government over its plans to tighten rules on the labelling of genetically modified (GM) food products, in what consumer and environmental groups have dubbed a 'secret trade war' being waged via the World Trade Organization.

Friends of the Earth Europe, the environmental campaign group, has obtained previously unavailable Commission documents responding to informal - and hence calculated as clandestine by critical observers - complaints made by the US and several other countries to the WTO.

The US administration 'wants to remove the right of European consumers to say 'No' to GM food', said Geert Ritsema, GM campaign coordinator at Friends of the Earth. 'If it succeeds in preventing GM food from being labelled it will become almost impossible to avoid it.'

The Commission proposal, which was approved by the European Parliament in July, will be up for review by agriculture ministers on 14-16 October and their environment counterparts on 17 October in Luxembourg. Both Councils are expected to approve the measures.

'The ministers must now go further by tightening GM labelling rules,' Ritsema said. 'Consumers must come before the biotech interests of the US government.'

Environmental groups, consumer organisations and many supermarket chains would welcome such labelling, while the biotech industry on both sides of the Atlantic would not, Ritsema said, adding that about 70 of EU citizens are sceptical about GM foods and some 95 want to see such products clearly labelled.

Currently, food in Europe is only labelled in exceptional cases, Ritsema claimed, citing soy in a non-processed form or bulk raw nuts as examples. If this new mandatory labelling regime were to come into effect, processed foods ranging from canned soup to vegetable oil, as well as all types of sugars, will be labelled for GM content.

Animal feed would also be labelled for GM content for the first time, said Ritsema. Any recommendation for changes to the new labelling measure by the Council of Ministers would go back to the Parliament for a second and possibly even a third reading as the two EU bodies must approve the Commission proposal via the co-decision procedure. It is therefore not expected to come into force for at least another year.

The US maintains that a tougher labelling and traceability regime would be more trade-restrictive than necessary. It argues that scientists, not member states, should have the final say on the approval of new GM food and crops.

According to Washington, the EU leaves 'substantial room for political interference' and 'individual member states will continue to be able to hold the approval process hostage to political concerns'.

A Brussels-based US official, meanwhile, said it was not appropriate to refer to a 'secret trade war', as the US complaint was filed nearly a year ago as part of normal WTO procedure. 'I think Friends of the Earth is trying to make more out of this than there is,' she said.

The European Commission has rejected complaints from the US government over its plans to tighten rules on the labelling of genetically modified (GM) food products.