North American soybeans and rapeseed containing GMOs not authorised in Europe could enter the EU because, in the absence of European testing protocols , EU governments are currently unable to test imports of a new generation of genetically modified food and animal feed (called GMO 2.0), warned the NGO Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) on Friday 19 July.
This warning, issued the day after the EU-Canada summit, is based on documents obtained by the Friends of the Earth Europe and Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), pointing the finger for responsibility at the European Commission (DG Health) which, in April 2017, blocked research on the testing of these GMOs.
In July 2018, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that GMO 2.0 is covered by EU legislation, which requires regular import controls and tests (see EUROPE 12070/6).
"The public and the environment are being put at risk because the European Commission has failed to follow EU law and develop testing methods for new genetically modified foods. There is an urgent need to prevent farmers accidentally planting GM seeds in Europe and to reassure citizens that they are not inadvertently eating unapproved and untested GM foods", explains Mute Schimpf, food and agriculture expert at FoEE, in a statement.
Therefore, the NGO urges the Commission to urgently identify a European testing method.
Correspondence between Member States and the European Commission obtained through access to information requests, as well as official documents and declarations from individual national governments show that:
- national authorities cannot control whether imports of seeds, food and animal feed contain new unauthorised GMOs.
- imports of Canadian rapeseed and American soybeans intended for human and animal consumption are most likely to be contaminated by unauthorised GMOs.
- governments are ready to fulfil their legal obligations and test imported food, animal feed and seeds as soon as the European Commission has made the testing methods public. However, the European Commission has failed to coordinate a process to update controls on imports of GMO 2.0, including trials.
It should be noted that, to enable trade negotiations with the United States to resume, a promise was made in July 2018 by the President of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, on behalf of the EU, to increase imports of American soybeans (see EUROPE 12071/2). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)