Strasbourg, 14/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - It was finally with quite a large majority (338 for, 52 against and 85 abstentions) that the European Parliament agreed with its rapporteur, British Labour member David Bowe, on Tuesday. It approved the joint project reached from EP/Council conciliation procedure on a new regulation on the voluntary dissemination of genetically modified organisms into the environment. The Directive, which has still to be formally approved by the Council, repeals that of 1990.
The work of the Conciliation Committee came to a close on 14 December 2000 (see EUROPE of 18/19 December, p.10) with an agreement on a package covering, above all: - exclusion of pharmaceutical products for human use for research purposes from the "research" part of the directive; - invitation to the Commission to present before this coming July a proposal of legislation concerning the Cartagena protocol on bio-safety (important for exports of GMO to third countries); - the registration of GMOs disseminated during the trial period and detailed information for the public, while GMO dissemination sites for commercial purposes should be notified to the relevant authorities and communicated to the public; - the restriction to ten years of the first authorisation for GMO dissemination and a limit in time on renewal of the initial authorisation, as Parliament had requested; - the request that the Commission should present, in 2001 (what the Commission has undertaken to do in a written declaration) of appropriate legislative proposals on labelling and traceability.
The debate brought to light deep divisions between those who consider that conciliation procedure had resulted in real improvements to the directive and those who believe the text still leaves much to be desired. Rapporteur David Bowe is among the former, and considers that the result would be "the toughest legislation in the world" - a view shared mainly by German Christian Democrat Peter Liese, who paid homage to the work done by CSU member Ingo Friedrich, as head of the Parliament's delegation at the Conciliation Committee. Guido Sacconi, member of Democratici di sinistra, toned this down by calling for a moratorium on the new authorisations for cultivation and marketing of GMOs to be maintained pending the adoption of effective provisions on the traceability of GMOs allowing reliable labelling of all GMO products to be guaranteed. This, moreover, is one of the requests to be made by Italy, France, Luxembourg, Denmark and Greece, as well as perhaps Germany, in a statement that they intend to present on the occasion of the Council vote in third reading. Other MEPs spoke along the same lines, and above all German Green member Hilfred Breyer, Irish Member of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group Liam Hyland and Swedish member of the European United Left/Nordic Greens Left Jonas Sjöstedt, who believes that, in the text reached from conciliation, the "central section" is still missing, namely assurance regarding traceability, labelling and responsibility. We do not need GMOs, said Mr Sjöstedt, who also denounced the lack of clarity concerning the availability of information on public records accessible to citizens (one of the more complex aspects of negotiation on this directive).
Speaking at a press conference, the Belgian co-president of the Greens, Paul Lannoye, announced that there was abstention from a "very large majority" of the group. Indeed, even if the final text is clearly better than that adopted in second reading, the progress made does not, according to the Greens, allow the moratorium to be lifted. This will only be possible when the question of civil liability is completely settled, while the European Commission has made a commitment on this point, but it is not yet known what it plans to propose, said Mr Lannoye. The other key issues are: the ban on genes that are resistant to antibiotics (banned from 2004: which is fine, albeit a little late) and the contamination of non-genetically modified plants, stressed Mr Lannoye. It is quite another tune from Benedetto Della Vedova, on the Lista Bonino, who recalled that three years have gone by since Environment Commissioner Bjerregaard and Commissioner for Consumer Policy Emma Bonino had, in the Santer Commission, proposed amending the 1990 Directive. Mr Della Vedova, who cited Italian Minister Veronesi, "a man of science before becoming a minister", urged for research not to be paralysed and criticised the "prohibitionnist approach" of some towards scientific novelties.