Brussels, 13/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - In a ruling delivered on Friday 13 December (case T-240/10), the General Court of the EU cancelled the European Commission's decision of March 2010 authorising the marketing of the genetically modified potato Amflora, to be grown as a crop for both food and feed. The General Court stated that the Commission had infringed the procedural rules of the systems for authorising GMOs in the European Union by not consulting the relevant national expert committees or the Council in 2009, as it had done in 2005, after having received the favourable opinion of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
The facts of the case date back to 2005 when the company BASF Plant Science GmbH had, via a subsidiary, called on the Swedish authorities to authorise the marketing of its Amflora potato with a view to growing it as a crop and using it industrially. As several member states had submitted observations, the decision had been entrusted to the Union authorities (under the procedure established by Directive 2001/18/EC on the voluntary dissemination of GMO). Furthermore, the company had directly put to the Commission a request for marketing authorisation for the potato to be used as feed (as provided for under Regulation No 1829/2003 on GMOs in animal and human food).
In 2005, after receiving favourable opinions from EFSA, the Commission had submitted authorisation proposals to the relevant committees - regulatory committee on the dissemination of GMOs into the environment and the standing committee on the food chain and animal health (SCFCAH) - but, as these had not given their opinion, the Commission then addressed the Council, which did not adopt a decision. At that stage, in line with procedure, the Commission could have granted the authorisations requested but had preferred to call on EFSA for clarification concerning certain inconsistencies that appeared in the opinions of that authority. It then granted the authorisations requested in March 2010, after a consolidated opinion of EFSA in June 2009 whereby the latter confirmed (despite minority opinions disagreeing with its conclusions) that the Amflora potato did not present a risk to human health, or to the environment. Following that opinion, no new draft decisions were put before the competent committees by the Commission. Hungary, supported by France, Luxembourg, Austria and Poland, called for those decisions to be annulled.
In its ruling, the General Court ruled in their favour. It found that the Commission, before adopting the contested decisions, had not submitted the amended drafts of those decisions, together with the EFSA's consolidated opinion of 2009 and the minority opinions, to the competent committees. In light of such elements, the expert committees would have been able to review their position on the subject of authorisation. Furthermore, if there had been an unfavourable opinion or if there had been no opinion from the committees, the Commission would have been obliged to submit the proposals for authorisation to the Council, which could have decided for or against the authorisations in question. It was only at the end of that procedure, when there was no decision by the Council, that the Commission should have adopted its decisions.
The ruling comes as a bitter blow for the Commission, which had authorised marketing of the Amflora potato despite the outcry. Speaking through its spokesman, the Commission reacted to the verdict, suggesting the possibility of forming an appeal before the Court. Greenpeace (the association that opposed the decision in 2010 by collecting over one million signatures with Avaaz) came up with a different reaction. In the light of the ruling, it called on the Commission to review its recent proposal to approve the genetically modified maize 1507. In this case, also, the Commission, after a further scientific opinion from EFSA, circumvented national experts by submitting its proposal to Council directly. The other current GMO case concerns the renewal of marketing authorisation for the Monsanto MON810 genetically modified maize. The decision is still under scrutiny. (FG/transl.jl)