Brussels, 20/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - At Thursday's Agriculture Council, several member states including Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria and Greece spoke out against any authorisation for new GMO varieties before future regulations on traceability and labelling of these substances (which found political agreement last November and December) have been implemented across the board. Commissioner David Byrne told the Press a special meeting between member state experts and the Commission would take place on 7 March to discuss the problem of authorisation procedures for these new GMOs: "This meeting will allow the Commission to determine how to proceed", was all Mr Byrne would say: "I do believe it is now time to move on", he insisted, pointing out that the European Parliament had still to adopt the new regulations at second reading, which it would probably do in July.
Whilst conceding that there would soon be new authorisations, the German minister Renate Künast told the Press that "Germany presupposes that the moratorium will only be lifted once the regulations on traceability and labelling have entered into force". She believed that this would happen "in twelve months" and that several problems remained unresolved: Directive 2001/8 (GMO distribution) had not yet been transposed into national law; rules on the co-existence of conventional and GM production had to be established; rules had to be drawn up on civil liability in cases of cross-contamination.
The UK (and, to a lesser extent, Spain, which specified that it has 50,000 hectares planted with GMO crops), disagreed, saying that waiting for the new regulation to enter into force should not be used as an excuse for suspending new applications for authorisation. Sweden made a request for the new regulation to enter into force more quickly.
Problem of co-existence between traditional and organic production, and GMO production
The Council also examined the problem of the co-existence of traditional crops (including organic) and GMO. Commissioner Franz Fischler (responsible for this particular dossier) explained that it was a question of the economic consequences conventional and organic producers could be faced with should they be forced to sell their products at a lower price due to the unintentional presence of GMO above the allowable rate. "If a GMO crop with specific qualities came to be mixed in with traditional products, it would also lose value", added Mr Fischler, who announced that he would be presenting a document on the subject of co-existence to the college of Commissioners on 5 March. "I hope that we will go away from this discussion with clear guidelines and a definite timetable for the upcoming work", he said. At the same time, the Commission would be continuing its research into the subject (especially within the 6th framework research programme), he stated, before thanking the member states who had already presented studies in this area (UK, Denmark, Sweden and Germany). Italy asked once again for preventative measures against the effects of contamination, and the suspension of the registering of genetically modified seeds in the community catalogue. Mr Byrne opposed this request, saying that once seeds were registered in the national register, they were automatically included in the common community catalogue.