Brussels, 21/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - There has been a new development in the glyphosate herbicide saga. For public health reasons, the European Parliament Environment Committee, chaired by Giovanni La Via (EPP, Italy), has vetoed the Commission project to authorise imports into the EU for human food and animal feed, of three kinds of genetically modified soya that are resistant to this very controversial herbicide (see EUROPE 11471, 11460).
These involve Bayer's FG 72 soya and Monsanto's genetically modified soya products MON 87708 x, MON 89788 and MON 87705 x89788, on which EU member states failed to reach an agreement in November 2015 (see EUROPE 11433).
To support their objection, MEPs mainly highlighted the fact that on 20 March, the WHO classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” to humans. This did not go down well with the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), which on 12 November last said that this was “unlikely”.
Committee members pointed out that since the entry into force of the authorisation system in the EU, all authorisation decisions had been taken by the European Commission (member states failed to reach the required qualified majority to approve or reject authorisation), which they believe should be the exception and not the rule.
The Commission proposal is supposed to rectify this problem by giving member states the possibility of banning or limiting on their territory the use of GMOs imported for human food or animal feed but the European Parliament was not convinced by this approach. It thinks it is impractical and likely to lead to fragmentation in the internal market. The EP also objected to this project in October 2015 (see EUROPE 11420).
On 1-4 February in its next plenary session in Strasbourg, the European Parliament will give its verdict on the objection to imports of the three transgenic soyas currently in the process of being authorised. It should be pointed out that at the end of 2015, the Commission decided to authorise transgenic maize without taking into account Parliament's objection (see EUROPE 11455 and 11446). Martin Haüsling (Greens/EFA, Germany), a member of the Environment and Agriculture Committees, has told the European Commission “not to repeat this mistake”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)