Luxembourg, 14/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - Monday's Agriculture Council held a policy debate on the subject of the proposal of regulation (dating back to July 2001) on food containing genetically modified organisms intended for human consumption and for animal feed. Discussion was based on a discussion paper from the Danish Presidency on three aspects: (1) the choice of authorisation procedure; - (2) the accidental presence of GMOs whose risk has been assessed but which have not received marketing authorisation (in other words, the 13 varieties for which marketing was suspended by the 1999 moratorium); and (3) the labelling threshold for authorised GMOs (below which it is not compulsory to mention that the food contains GMOs).
Most Member States showed they clearly preferred a centralised procedure for authorising GMOs (which would give the first role of risk assessment to the European Food Safety Authority), whereas the Presidency suggested a decentralised procedure (similar to that which exists today) involving the Member States. Only Austria, Spain, Ireland and Denmark were open to the choice of decentralised procedure. Furthermore, a debate was held on the choice of legal base. According to an opinion from the Council's legal service, the text of the regulation should be adopted by unanimity in the event of centralised procedure. The Commission, which is not of this opinion, considers that the choice of centralised procedure (that it supports) would not prevent the regulation from being finalised by qualified majority.
As far as the second question is concerned, the Presidency suggested accepting, during a transitional period of three years and within a 1% limit (which could be reviewed downwards or on a case by case basis), the accidental presence in food of the GMOs curently under moratorium. Sweden called for zero tolerance (as the Parliament would like), Germany asked for the threshold to be "as low as possible", Greece called for less than 1%, Spain considered that this limit should be "studied on a case by case basis" and France declared that the tendency taken by the Presidency (that is a threshold of 1%) seemed "reasonable". The question of labelling also divided the Fifteen countries: Italy and Austria tabled on labelling from a threshold of 0.5% of GMO (like the EP), while the United Kingdom, Spain, Finland and Portugal expressed their preference for a 1% threshold (as suggested by the Presidency), and France, Sweden and Germany would like less than 1%.
This dossier, which will be taken up again on Thursday by the Environment Ministers, was referred back to the Committee of the Representatives of Member States (Coreper) and should pass before the Council again in November.
According to France, there will be no question of moratorium for the next nine or ten months
During a press conference, French Minister Hervé Gaymard pointed out that the question of lifting the moratorium will not be posed in the next nine or ten months, until conditions are met (namely, the enforcement of all Community regulations). "Otherwise, the prevailing logic will be that he who has the greatest fear will win", he warned, adding that, afterwards, "it will be a fight at the WTO". Commissioner David Byrne admitted during a press conference that the EU was gradually and inexorably moving towards the objective of lifting the moratorium. During the Council, Mr Byrne recalled that the United States was pushing more and more for the moratorium to be lifted (see EUROPE of 10 October, p.12).