Brussels, 17/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission gave rather a cool welcome to the suggestions made last week by the United States with a view to "improving" the Community system in gestation regarding the traceability and the labelling of products likely to contain genetically modified organisms. The system is "impractical, unwieldy, discriminatory and disadvantageous even for Europe", said Alain P. Larson, US Under Secretary of State for Economic and Agricultural Affairs, during a short trip to Brussels last Wednesday. He stressed Washington's growing impatience regarding the European embargo on GMOs.
American patience continues to wear thin after three years of freezing the process for approval of GMOs, said Mr Larson. He pointed out that the issue is obviously very important commercially speaking for the United States. He said he was there to understand how things stand in order to be able to decide what would be the best approach to follow. He did not, however, speak at this stage of filing a complaint with the WTO. The feeling on the American side is that, among the many approaches that have been tried, none have worked. The Commission has not yet done everything in its power, with the competences that it has, to have the Community regulations and legislation applied, he said in substance, returning on several occasions to the "urgency" of making a "real political effort" so that the approval procedure starts up again. It is also in the interest of Europeans on one of the most important emergent markets and, more still, of the future of populations that are suffering from hunger, he said, developing at length this controversial argument to say the least on the use of biotechnology as a response to this particularly acute and complex problem in the Third World.
On the second chapter of the GMO affair, Mr Larson invited the Union to "improve and reconsider" its proposal to set in place a system of traceability and labelling which, as it stands, does not seem to him to be viable. The project, which was presented several days earlier in Geneva, would also prove "discriminatory" in the absence of "justification for tracing and costly labelling that covers (the GMOs) and not other products" such as wine and cheese that are, however, likely to be produced with the help of genetically modified enzymes, he affirmed. He went on to suggest that Europeans should consider "other models" available, mainly in the light of the concluding experiments done throughout the world, if their aim is really to facilitate consumer choice. A "GMO free" label would no doubt be more precise, effective and easily controllable rather than stigmatise products for what they might contain. You might as well stamp everything with "potentially genetically modified" or remove everything from the shelves, he said sarcastically. This "option" was discussed a long time back, the European Commission replied, recalling that the Commission had judged it "insufficient consumer information". "Our proposals are on the table and we shall not change them", said the spokesperson.