Brussels, 31/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - During Monday's Agriculture Council, the European Commission refused Italy's demand for a modification of Community procedures for assessing the risk of genetically modified products to health and the environment.
On a number of points Italy called on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to no restrict itself to analysing scientific data provided by biotech companies when it is in charge of assess sing a demand for marketing GMOs. Italy explains that the EFSA “thus does not conduct any scientific tests to ascertain whether new genetically modified products are safe to use; it merely examines the scientific data supplied by applicants.” According to Rome, the authority should be able to carry out the analyses itself for assessing, in an independent way, the safety of the products. Italy is being supported in its approach by Greece, Spain, Slovenia, Hungary and Luxembourg.
The European Commissioner for health and consumer protection, Markos Kyprianou, said that, “Any change in the system would change the EU's whole approach on GMO authorisations, and it would alter the burden of proof”. The Commissioner did not see any reasons to revise current procedures. Italian minister Giovanni Alemanno said that he was disappointed by the Commission's response, “We want stricter and more objective GMO authorisation rules. The EFSA needs to carry out its own experiments or provide a list of laboratories able to carry out experimental checks on data provided by the body requesting authorisation”. The Commission has decided, however, to examine this issue in the context of the next revision of the regulation setting up the EFSA.