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ISIS Report 01/11/04
Europe Still Resisting GMOs
The authorisation of Bt 11 sweet maize for food use in May this year
marked the end of Europe’s de facto moratorium on GM approvals.
However, there is by no means consensus on GMOs in Europe.
Lim Li Ching explains how approvals can
still occur despite objections
Sources
for this report are available in the ISIS members site.
Full details here
On 20 September 2004, an EU regulatory committee failed to reach a
decision to support a proposal by the European Commission for the import of
Monsanto’s GM maize (MON863 and MON863 x MON810 hybrids). The committee
postponed a formal vote on Monsanto’s application, to seek clarification
and more information. A regulatory committee vote is expected for MON863 maize
on 29th November. The maize has been controversial, as concerns have
been raised regarding the results of a feeding study that showed effects in the
blood and kidneys of rats fed the GM maize. These effects were unobserved in
rats fed conventional maize.
This is just the latest in a string of GM applications to meet strong
resistance from European countries. It was the eighth failed attempt by the
Commission to win support for a GMO or GM product. Health and environmental
concerns over these GMOs have been raised by scientists and regulators from
various countries.
Under current EU law, when an application is made by a company to market
a GMO or GM product in a Member State, and there is no consensus among other
Member States, then the Commission steps in. It seeks advice from the European
Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which provides the various scientific panels that
carry out environmental risk and human and animal health assessment. Lack of
scientific consensus has sometimes occurred at this stage. If EFSA supports an
application, the Commission drafts and adopts a proposal to approve the GMO or
GM product concerned.
This is then transmitted to the appropriate regulatory committee,
depending on the intended use of the GMO or GM product concerned. The
committees comprise representatives of the 25 Member States. Decisions are made
by a ‘qualified majority’ vote. The votes are weighted among the
Member States according to their size. A certain percentage of the weighted
votes (232 out of 321 votes) are required to reach qualified majority.
If the regulatory committee cannot reach a qualified majority to adopt
or reject a Commission proposal, the next decision level is the Council of
Ministers (comprising environment or agriculture ministers from the 25 Member
States, depending on the intended use of the GMO or GMO product). A qualified
majority is needed to either approve or reject the proposal.
However, in the absence of a qualified majority and according to the
so-called ‘comitology’ procedure, the Commission can take the final
decision. This means that ‘approval’ of a GMO in the EU can occur
despite continuing objections by a number of Member States. In addition, such
‘approval’ goes against the wishes of most European citizens, who
overwhelmingly reject GMOs.
The following is a list of the failures to reach qualified majority at
either the regulatory committee or Council stages since December 2003:
- 8 December 2003: Vote on Bt 11 sweet maize for food use at the
Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health. Result: no qualified
majority. 6 countries in favour; 6 against; 3 abstentions.
- 18 February 2004: Vote on NK 603 maize for import and use in feed and
industrial processing at the Standing Committee of Release of GMOs into the
Environment. Result: no qualified majority. 9 in favour; 5 against; 1
abstention.
- 26 April 2004: Vote on Bt 11 sweet maize for food at the Council of
Agriculture Ministers. Result: no qualified majority 6 in favour; 6 against; 3
abstentions. The decision thus reverted to the Commission, which approved Bt 11
sweet maize for food use on 19 May 2004, ending the EU’s de facto
moratorium. However, Syngenta later said the product would not be
commercialised in Europe, for now, due to strong consumer resistance.
- 30 April 2004: Vote on NK 603 maize for food use at the Standing
Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health. Result: no qualified majority. 8 in
favour; 5 against; 2 abstentions.
- 16 June 2004: Vote on GT 73 oilseed rape for import and use in feed
and industrial processing at the Standing Committee of Release of GMOs into the
Environment. Result: no qualified majority. 9 in favour; 12 against; 4
abstentions. GT 73 will go to the Council of Environment Ministers for a
vote.
- 28 June 2004: Indicative vote on NK 603 maize for import and use in
feed and industrial processing at the Council of Environment Ministers. Result:
no qualified majority. 11 in favour; 9 against; 3 abstentions. The decision
thus reverted to the Commission, which on 19 July 2004 approved NK 603 for
import and processing for use in animal feed or for industrial purposes.
However, imports for this use can only commence once the equivalent approval
has also been granted for food use.
- 19 July 2004: No official vote, so no decision at the Council of
Agriculture Ministers on NK 603 maize for food use. This was after it became
clear that no qualified majority could be reached, as Member States had not
changed their positions from when the Standing Committee met on 30 April. The
proposal reverted to the Commission on 13 October 2004, which approved NK 603
for food use on 26 October; this means that imports of NK 603 are now allowed
into Europe.
In other developments, on 8 September 2004, the Commission approved the
inscription of 17 varieties derived from MON 810 maize in the Common EU
Catalogue of Varieties of Agricultural Plant Species. MON 810 has been
authorised in the EU since 1998, under previous weaker legislation, but this is
the first time GM varieties have been added to the Common Catalogue.
The move allows farmers to commercially grow the GM varieties across the
whole of Europe. Before this decision, the 17 varieties seeds only had national
authorisations - 6 are on the national catalogue in France, 11 in Spain –
so only farmers in those countries were able to buy and plant the seeds. There
is an on-going Europe-wide campaign to "Stop the Crop", being co-ordinated by
the Friends of the Earth Europe (see
www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/gmofree/).
And opposition is not just coming from NGOs; fifteen of the 25 EU member states
have also criticised the Commission’s decision. In addition, Poland’s
environment and agriculture ministries want to have continued national
restrictions on the cultivation of MON 810.
The Commission however was unable to reach consensus on a proposal to
set maximum levels of GMO contamination in seeds. A draft decision was due to
be adopted by Commissioners, proposing a 0.3% threshold in maize and oilseed
rape, before triggering labelling. Critics, including farmers, trade unions,
environmental groups, and seed producers, deem this threshold as too high and
have campaigned for it to be set at 0.1%, the current lowest technically
feasible level. Moreover, Austria has had a workable and feasible seed purity
law since 2002. It adopted a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy, prohibiting
contamination of seeds with GM varieties above the detection level of 0.1%.
The decision on seed thresholds was postponed pending more information
on the economic impact of the proposed threshold. The issue will now come
before the newly appointed Commission. Incoming agriculture commissioner,
Mariann Fischer Boel, had campaigned for a 0.1% threshold in her native
Denmark, and has told the European Parliament that the seed thresholds should
be set at the lowest possible level.
In addition, the national bans on GMOs held by a number of European
countries are currently being challenged. The European Commission is reportedly
intending to ask countries to vote on 29th November at a regulatory
committee meeting, on whether each country that has a national ban should lift
its embargo. Such bans are the subject of the complaints against the EU brought
to the WTO by the US, Canada and Argentina, with those countries claiming that
they are trade barriers.
It is clear that the GM fight will continue in Europe. But resistance is
still strong at all levels.
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