Relaxing the controls and checks for radioactive contamination of food and feed from Fukushima, as the European Commission has proposed, is not an issue on which the European Parliament will have any discussion: the precautionary principle has to apply.
MEPs voted in Strasbourg on Wednesday 13 September to veto the Commission’s draft implementing regulation that seeks both to cut the checks on rice and rice-based products, some species of fish, and crustaceans and molluscs as a whole and to reduce the number of Japanese prefectures to which the strict post-Fukushima control measures apply (see EUROPE 11857).
The objection was passed by the comfortable majority of 543 votes to 100, with 43 abstentions.
Parliament argued that this proposal could lead to an increase in exposure to radioactive contamination. It notes that the Commission provided neither justification nor explanation for its proposal and that neither data provided by the Japanese authorities for 2014, 2015 and 2016 nor analysis of these data were appended to the proposal. MEPs call on the Commission, therefore, to withdraw the proposal which would amend the Implementing Regulation 2016/6.
Parliament’s objection is not legally binding. The ball is now in the member states’ court. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)