Brussels, 03/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament agriculture committee on Thursday 3 September decided to ask the environment, public health and food safety committee, which is the competent committee on content, to call for rejection of the European Commission proposal to allow member states to restrict or to prohibit the use of EU-approved genetically modified (GM) food or feed with their borders.
The opinion by Albert Dess (EPP, Germany) was passed by the agriculture committee by 28 votes to 8, with 6 abstentions. The environment committee is due to adopt its position when it meets on 12-13 October. The European Parliament will put the matter to the vote at its plenary session in Strasbourg on 26-29 October.
The agriculture committee fears that arbitrary national bans could distort competition on the EU's single market and jeopardise those Union's food production sectors which are heavily dependent on imports of GM feed.
“Today's vote sends a clear message: the Commission's proposal to allow member states to decide whether or not to restrict or ban the use of GM food and feed on their territory must be rejected. We have not been building the EU's single market to let arbitrary political decisions distort it completely”, said Dess.
“The Commission's approach is completely unrealistic. We have many sectors in the EU that rely to a great extent on imports of GM feed and would not be able to survive if it is banned. If we allowed this, then all animal food production in the EU would be at stake, which could make us much more dependent on food imports from third countries that do not necessarily respect our high production standards. And we certainly want to avoid this”, he added. (Lionel Changeur)