Brussels, 10/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - The representatives of the agricultural and agro-food industry organisations made a clear statement of their position on Thursday 9 April, urging European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to give up on any attempt to repatriate EU market authorisations of genetically modified crops for feed and food use.
Convinced that any such move would undermine the internal market, they are disquieted at the idea that the Commission is considering proposing reform of the European authorisation procedure for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) imported into the EU in order to allow the member states to decide whether or not they wish to have these GMOs marketed within their respective borders (see EUROPE 11291).
In a press release, Pekka Pesonen, secretary general of Copa-Cogeca (European agricultural organisations), warns the European Commission on the severe economic and social impacts of this proposal, which, he says, will severely jeopardise the internal market for food and feed products leading to significant job losses and lower investment in the agro-food chain in “opt-out countries”. This would lead to severe distortion of competition for all EU agro-food chain partners, he argues.
The food and feed chain partners believe that properly implementing the existing legislation should be the main priority for the Commission before starting further reflection on changing the current authorisation procedure. An import authorisation procedure, as envisaged by the Commission, that allows the member states to pick and choose as they wish would be in contradiction with the basic requirements of the treaties and would pose serious questions about the Commission's employment and growth policy priorities and the smart legislation agenda, they say.
They also call on the Commission to fulfil its role as guardian of the treaties by rejecting this approach which, they claim, will undermine the economic progress brought by the customs union and the internal market. The signatories of the call were Copa-Cogeca, COCERAL (trade in cereals), FEDIOL (protein crops industry), FEFAC (animal feed), UECBV (trade in livestock), AVEC (trade in poultry), Europabio, Starch Europe, FERM (Federation of European Rice Millers), ESA and Unistock Europe. (Aminata Niang)