MEPs demand legislation to protect crops from GMOs

Date: 28/05/03

By Karen Carstens

IN A move sure to deepen an already tense transatlantic biotech trade divide, the European Parliament's environment committee has backed more stringent laws governing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

MEPs went further than European Commission proposals in a second-reading vote on a draft regulation on GM food and animal feed last Friday (22 May), by demanding legislative rather than voluntary measures to control accidental GM contamination of non-GM crops.

While the Commission has been pushing for the 'coexistence' of such crops - when they are planted on the same or neighbouring farms - to be regulated on a voluntary basis by member states, green groups and many farmers who cultivate only conventional or organic crops have demanded that more stringent rules are needed at EU level.

"This is a clear political signal the European Commission cannot deny," said Geert Ritsema, GMO campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe.

"Voluntary guidelines are just not enough to secure GM-free food. Legally binding rules are needed to protect farming and consumers from GMO contamination."

MEPs also called for a ban on any presence of unauthorised GMOs and a 0.5 limit above which GM food and feed must be labelled.

This is significantly lower than a 0.9 figure agreed by EU agriculture ministers last November.

"It will be far easier to monitor the presence of GMOs in the food chain," Welsh Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans said of the stricter measures.

Few changes, however, were made to a separate companion regulation on the labelling and traceability of GM products.

The vote came hot on the heels of a complaint last week by US President George W. Bush that the EU's sceptical stance on the issue had led several African nations to refuse shipments of American GM food aid.

The US, along with Canada, Argentina and Egypt, as well as the backing of nine other countries, earlier this month dragged the EU before the World Trade Organization (WTO), demanding it lift a de facto moratorium on the authorisation of new GM products in place since 1998.

The European Parliament vote could further stall the process of putting the new GM regulations in place - previously predicted by about mid-2004 - after which EU officials have indicated the moratorium could be lifted.

A full plenary vote on the amendments to the two draft regulations is scheduled to take place in July, after which the measures would still need to be approved by member states.

The UK and the Netherlands are opposed to stricter controls on GMOs.

Meanwhile, Friends of the Earth, along with the Greens in the European Parliament, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and retailer organisation Eurocoop, are hosting a Parliamentary conference on coexistence today (May 28).

Several green groups felt snubbed last month by the Commission when it hosted its own day-long debate on the subject.

They claimed it pandered to the biotech industry and member state governments and failed to take into account consumers' or farmers' fears.

The European Parliament has called for legislative rather than voluntary measures to control accidental GM contamination of non-GM crops.