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ISIS Report 05/12/03
Keeping Europe GM-Free
Efforts to ensure Europe remains GM-free have been stepped up.
Lim Li Ching reports on the European
Social Forum.
The second European Social Forum, held in and around Paris from 12-15
November 2003, brought together some 50 000 from across Europe and beyond to
articulate an alternative vision of the world based on international
cooperation, human development and social justice.
Different initiatives and strategies to maintain the pressure for a
GM-free Europe were discussed at a workshop, ‘How to Keep Europe
GM-Free?’ Europe’s regulatory framework on GMOs is now in place, with
stricter legislation on deliberate release into the environment (Directive
2001/18/EC), GM food and feed (Regulation 1829/2003) and traceability and
labelling (Regulation 1830/2003); the latter two have to be applied by April
2004. But there is concern that this is not enough.
There are outstanding issues of seed purity, contamination or
coexistence, and liability and redress, which have yet to be addressed
satisfactorily. In the meantime, efforts by local authorities to establish
GM-free zones have met with difficulties. Upper Austria’s attempt to
declare itself GM-free in September 2003 was rejected by the European
Commission (EC), on grounds that no new scientific evidence had emerged to
support a ban, and that Upper Austria had failed to prove the existence of a
problem specific to the region that justified such an approach. The Upper
Austrian parliament will appeal this decision.
Nonetheless, Friends of the Earth is currently spearheading a campaign
on GM-free zones. Activists are lobbying local authorities to declare their
areas GM-free, using Article 19 of Directive 2001/18/EC, which allows
authorities to specify conditions of consent including the protection of
particular ecosystems/environments and/or geographical areas. This implies that
such zones can be excluded from GM marketing consents if a scientific case is
made demonstrating that the GM product in question poses a particular risk to
the area. To date, more than 20 local authorities in the UK have adopted
GM-free policies.
Recently, ten GM-free European regions formed a network, coordinated by
Upper Austria and Tuscany; it includes Aquitaine, Basque Country, Limousin,
Marche, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Thrace-Rodopi and Wales. The network
produced a document asserting the right of regions to forbid GMOs within their
territories, which was signed by the regions’ agriculture ministers. The
need for strong local authorities and national legislation is evident in such
efforts, stressed Antonio Onarati from Italy.
Velt - the federation of ecological living and producing – launched
its ‘GMO-free communities’ campaign in Belgium last year. It has been
urging all 308 Flemish local authorities to declare their territories GM-free.
While the Federal Government has jurisdiction on this issue, it has assured
Velt that the opinion of local communities who want to stay GM-free will be
taken into account. Thanks to the campaign, public debates on GM have taken
place in several villages and cities for the first time.
It is crucial that the terms of such public debates are defined in
consultation with civil society. This is what CCC-OGM – the French
Collective for a Citizens’ Conference – is demanding. CCC-OGM,
consisting of fifteen French NGOs, was created in late 2002 to demand that the
French government initiate a public debate on GM before any political
decision is made, particularly with regard to lifting the de facto
moratorium on GM. It recommends using citizens’ conferences, the
results of which would be used to stimulate parliamentary debate. The
collective hopes to mobilise European partners to organise similar debates
throughout Europe.
CCC-OGM is producing a ‘dossier of charges’ against GMOs,
which examines scientific, legal, economic and ethical dimensions of the
debate. This complements the report of the Independent Science Panel (ISP),
The Case for a GM-Free Sustainable World, which is a complete dossier of
evidence on the known hazards and problems with GM crops, and of the manifold
benefits of sustainable agriculture. The ISP report has been the basis of the
ISP’s call for a ban on environmental releases of GMOs.
I introduced the ISP report and called for independent science and
research, and funding thereof. Particularly, we need independent
biosafety research, which looks at the risks associated with genetic
engineering, as many questions remain unanswered. In the meantime, scientific
evidence of hazards to date has to be taken seriously. There are also areas of
research that are severely under-funded, such as sustainable alternatives to GM
agriculture, which would include learning from farming communities and
indigenous peoples. Other kinds of western science (e.g. gene ecology, genome
fluidity) that would greatly inform on biosafety should be supported. Yet the
bulk of research funding is directed to reductionist technological options such
as GM, that’s overwhelmingly rejected by the citizens of Europe.
In developing countries where research capacity is limited and pulled
in many directions to meet basic needs, there is pressure to invest in GM. Yet
any inappropriate choice would result in devastating consequences,
economically, socially and ecologically, as well as for public health. This has
already happened in Argentina, as Jorge Rulli from Grupo Reflexion Rural
testified. Argentina’s experience of GM crops has been largely negative
and is linked to the neo-liberal economic paradigm adopted by the country.
Hence, the science policies of a nation also need to be addressed. Technology
assessment, which includes good science as well as environmental, health,
social and economic assessment, should precede technology transfer.
Keeping Europe GM-free will be no easy task, as exemplified by the
realities in Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Iza Kruszewska from
Clean Production Action and the Northern Alliance for Sustainability, ANPED
talked in particular about the situation in Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and
Serbia. Some progress has been made in these countries, with Slovenia part of
an initiative to create a GM-free transboundary bioregion that includes parts
of Austria and Italy.
Previous attempts by Croatia to ban production of GMOs and restrict the
import of GM food were met with threats of a WTO complaint from the US
government. Nonetheless, new legislation has recently come into force requiring
authorisation and labelling for all GM food and feed placed on the market, and
banning the release of GMOs in protected areas and their buffer zones, and in
areas of organic farming and of importance to ecotourism.
Serbia and Montenegro has a policy of keeping its agriculture GM-free,
with a comprehensive law regulating the conditions for deliberate release and
placing on the market. However, its potential GM-free status is threatened by
smuggling of GM soybeans, field trials and US food aid donations to Kosovo.
Contamination in the region is a pressing issue, as Romania and Bulgaria
grow GM crops commercially, and smuggling of GM seeds allegedly occurs from
these two countries. Furthermore, the chances for successful GM-free
initiatives in pro-US countries - Poland and Czech Republic - are unfortunately
slim, for this is where the biotech industry has most influence. NGOs there are
valiantly struggling to stop the commercialisation of GM crops.
NGOs in Albania are also facing challenges, according to Skelzen Marku
from the Centre for Rural Studies. Twenty-four organisations had sent a letter
to the Albanian Parliament demanding a 5-year moratorium on GMOs (seeds, food
aid and experimentations), working via the Socialist Parliamentary Group. The
proposal has however been postponed due to resignations within the Socialist
government. In the meantime, 16 000 tonnes of maize and soya (for animal feed)
arrived in Albania from the US in October 2003. Demonstrations were held to
protest these aid shipments, which, protesters suspect, is genetically
engineered.
Citizen and consumer action can turn the tide. Gerard Vuffray
from Stop OGM/Uniterre, Switzerland spoke on the Swiss referendum initiative,
where 120 000 signatures were collected to demand a 5-year moratorium on GM
crops. Friends of the Earth’s ‘Bite Back’ campaign urges
citizens’ to protest the US government’s complaint against the EU in
the WTO regarding the EU’s biosafety regulations. The US complaint, if
successful, will take away the right of Europeans to decide what they can eat.
Euro Coop, a consumers’ group in Brussels, is also trying to ensure
consumers’ right to refuse GMOs. The new labelling and traceability
regulations might be a good start, but Euro Coop is concerned that lifting the
moratorium without stringent measures on co-existence, or addressing
contamination (especially in seeds) and liability, would be disastrous. If
these issues are not addressed satisfactorily, consumers could enforce a
‘commercial moratorium’ (i.e. boycott).
The lifting of the de facto moratorium in Europe seems imminent,
and groups throughout the region are thus employing various strategies to
ensure Europe is GM-free, both in name and in practice. It will be a difficult
battle, as there is already commercial GM plantings in Spain, Romania and
Bulgaria, with numerous field trials in different countries.
All the more reason for us to step up our efforts - strategies include
calling for the moratorium to remain until all scientific questions on
biosafety are answered and until a proper public debate is held; declaring
GM-free zones both via local authorities and lobbying the EU to allow regions
and countries to declare themselves GM-free; getting the public to say
‘no’ to GMOs, including by effecting a ‘commercial
moratorium’; and lobbying for satisfactory and adequate EU legislation on
co-existence, liability and seed purity.
And if all else fails, there is direct action advocated by the Green
Gloves Pledge in the UK to pull up GM crops if commercial growing is
approved.
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