Brussels, 05/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Wednesday, Philippe Busquin, European Commissioner for Research, inaugurated the setting up of a European network of laboratories to improve traceability of GMOs in the food chain and thus serve as support for implementation of Community legislation in the matter, soon ready for adoption.
The new network consists of more than 45 laboratories located in Member States of the Union whose activities will be co-ordinated by the Commission's Joint Research Centre. They will have as task to develop and validate scientific methods for detecting and quantifying GMOs in food and feed.
At the launch ceremony for the network, Philippe Busquin declared: "I am very happy that the Agriculture Council managed to reach a political agreement on the Commission's proposal to regulate the placing on the market and labelling of genetically modified food. The agreement opens the way to the adoption of the proposal on traceability and labelling, at next week's Environment Council. The Agriculture Ministers' agreement is intended to ensure freedom of choice for consumers by providing for general labelling above the tolerance thresholds for the accidental presence of minimum traces of GMOs. The thresholds agreed upon by the Council are 0.9% for GMOs authorised in the Union and 0.5% for GMOs not yet authorised but that have already undergone a positive risk analysis in the European Union. Ensuring the respect of these standards requires not only the development of tests and the most advanced detection methods, but also their validation at European level so that the results are solid and comparable throughout the Union".