Members of the European Parliament's Environment Committee voted affirmatively by a comfortable majority (43 votes in favour, 16 against, 1 abstention) on Tuesday 27 November on the legislative proposal to increase the transparency of scientific risk assessments of substances such as pesticides or GMOs in the EU throughout the food chain.
This proposal revising the general EU food law that established the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in 2002 was presented by the Commission in April as a response to the European Citizens' Initiative ‘Stop glyphosate' (see EUROPE 11999).
The vote was particularly difficult in the absence of any possibility of compromise on an essential element of the proposal: the protection of intellectual property rights. To invoke such protection, as advocated by the EPP Group, could threaten public access to all scientific studies on which EFSA is based (see EUROPE 12143).
By their vote, the majority of MEPs supported the requirement that all scientific data submitted by industry as part of an application for authorisation should be made public. This is done as soon as these applications are submitted, as proposed by the Commission.
This led the rapporteur, the German Renate Sommer (EPP), to vote against the text, as did all the Members of her group.
"The transparency rules voted today for EFSA threaten the competitiveness of European food manufacturers. Research and development (R&D) is in danger of leaving Europe," she warned.
The vote was very long. MEPs voted on more than 600 amendments, most of which were aimed at countering this requirement for data transparency at an early stage.
The EPP Group used as a key argument the risk of theft of ideas by third-country competitors if they were given access to the innovation secrets of European industry throughout the authorisation procedure before EFSA took a decision.
For the rest, a pre-submission procedure has been introduced, with the aim of speeding up the application procedure, EFSA being in a position to advise the applicant on how to provide all the required information.
A common European register of commissioned studies should be set up, in order to prevent companies applying for authorisation from concealing unfavourable studies. Once the studies submitted to EFSA are made public, the Agency may also consult third parties to identify whether other scientific data or studies are available.
MEPs voted in favour of a series of criteria relating to information that may remain confidential, such as the brand under which the product will be marketed, innovative ideas or a detailed description of the preparations.
They refused to allow manufacturers of food contact materials to keep secret the results of tests for the migration of the chemical from the packaging material to the food. Pesticide producers will also not be able to keep the full composition of their products secret.
If, as far as transparency is concerned, the EPP Group found itself alone against everyone in the parliamentary committee, it will undoubtedly try to reverse the situation when Parliament votes at first reading in plenary in Strasbourg. The vote is scheduled for the session beginning Monday, December 10. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)