There is no question, as far as the members of the European Parliament’s environment committee are concerned, of agreeing to any relaxation of post-Fukushima import controls on foodstuffs coming into the EU from Japan. The precautionary principle cannot allow it.
The committee showed its determination in Brussels on Thursday 7 September when it vetoed a Commission draft implementing regulation of June 2016 which seeks to reduce both the number of foodstuffs subject to checks for radioactive contamination and the number of Japanese administrative areas (currently 18) to which the measures apply. The objection was adopted by a show of hands.
The Commission proposal would mean that rice and rice-based products, some species of fish and all molluscs and crustaceans from the Fukushima region could be imported into the EU without undergoing any checks, sampling or analysis, the MEPs pointed out.
A further reason provided by the MEPs for their decision is that member states would no longer be required to inform the Commission and the other member states of the results of analysis of samples through the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF).
Furthermore, the European Commission gave neither justification nor explanation for relaxing checks, the committee said.
Green MEP Michèle Rivasi (France), whose initiative the draft objection was, sees the free-trade agreement currently being negotiated between the EU and Japan as lying behind this move.
“Japanese exports of rice to the EU are likely to increase under the free-trade agreement that was presented on 6 July last. The negotiations taking place cannot take precedence over the health of European citizens, especially our children. One of the rice-based products removed from the list of foodstuffs that have to undergo checks is the rice used in foodstuffs for babies and young children. No level of contamination is acceptable for these particularly vulnerable groups”, she said.
The European Parliament will vote on this issue at the forthcoming plenary session in Strasbourg (11-14 September). It should be borne in mind that a European Parliament objection is not binding. The Commission implementing regulation in question seeks to amend its Implementing Regulation 2016/6. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)