Brussels, 29/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Agriculture Ministers of the EU Member States reached a political agreement, on Thursday evening in Brussels, on the compulsory labelling of GMOs in food and feed. This is a major step towards lifting the moratorium in force since 1999. The proposal of regulation amended by the Danish Presidency, which was approved by qualified majority of the Council after lengthy negotiations (and a first unfruitful round-the-table discussion - see yesterday's EUROPE, p.9), provides for all food packaging to carry labelling denoting the presence of GMOs if the proportion of GMOs exceeds 0.9% per ingredient (the Commission recommended a 1% tolerance threshold).
An agreement is also reached on the treatment to be reserved for traces of eleven varieties of GMO which were the subject of a positive assessment (but whose authorisations were blocked by the moratorium), and which could be accidentally present in food or feed. While the Commission proposed that there should be a three-year authorisation of these GMOs at a maximum level of 1%, the figure for their "accidental presence" will be 0.5%. The United Kingdom, which does not consider such thresholds realistic, as well as Austria and Luxembourg, which wanted stricter rules, have pointed out that they would vote against during the formal adoption of the Council common position. This will then be forwarded to the European Parliament, which should give its opinion at second reading in three months' time.
Commissioner David Byrne, who spoke of a "major step", felt that, with this agreement, European legislation in this connection would be almost complete, given that the directive regulating the "voluntary dissemination of GMOs into the environment" took effect on 17 October this year. Furthermore, the agreement, he says, gives major political impetus to the Environment Council, which is to examine, in December, the dossier on "traceability" of GMOs. If negotiations are successful at the level of Environment Ministers, the Fifteen will have fulfilled all the conditions that they had themselves fixed for lifting the moratorium. However, even countries, which - like France, Italy and Belgium - pledged to lift the ban as soon as effective provisions concerning full traceability of GMOs are adopted thus allowing reliable labelling, foresee that this will not function automatically despite US pressure. "For now, the conditions are not yet met", French Agriculture Minister Hervé Gaymard said.
Shrewd authorisation procedure and special treatment for seeds
The authorisation procedure chosen is half-way between a "centralised" procedure, which gives full power to the European Authority on Food Safety, and a "decentralised" procedure which leaves it up to national authorities to assess the risks. It comprises the following stages: - a company that wishes to market a GMO must send its request to the relevant national authorities, which then forward it directly to the European Food Safety Authority for risk assessment: - in the light of the opinion from the European Authority, the Commission will draft a proposal of decision that will be adopted according to committee procedure. This so-called "mixed" procedure has a dual advantage: - while allowing circumvention of an opinion from the Council's legal department, stating that the text of the regulation should be adopted by unanimity in the event of strictly centralised procedure, it receives the assent of a majority of Member States which are in favour of centralised procedure (the power entrusted to the European Authority remains intact since the national authorities only serve to forward the authorisation request to it). Currently, if the scientific assessment of GMOs is done in a centralised way through EU scientific committees, the authorisations are, at least before they are suspended, made by the EU Member States.
The procedure will be different for seeds in order to meet the concerns expressed by Member States such as France and Italy, which fear GMOs will become generalised through "natural" contamination of fields. The text thus comprises special provisions on the authorisation of seeds, which leave national authorities the responsibility of assessing the impact that such substances have on the environment.
Greenpeace welcomes the agreement
The environmental defence organisation, "Greenpeace", immediately gave its assent on the new text, although its representative in Brussels, Lorenzo Consoli, declared that the Fifteen could have gone further. "This legislation is a model for the world because it demonstrates that all GMOs can be labelled", Mr Consoli stressed, explaining that no country in the world had defined limits for the labelling of GMOs present in derived products.