Brussels, 13/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - The EU Member States, meeting at the Food and Feed Chain Regulatory Committee, will be asked on Monday 16 February 2009 to decide on the lifting of the safeguard measures applied by France and Greece against the growing of Monsanto's genetically modified MON 810 maize in their countries (see EUROPE 9824). The growing of MON 810 is allowed by law in the EU but controversy has been rising in France following the leaking to the media on 12 February 2009 of a secret opinion issued on 23 January 2009 by the French food safety agency AFSSA. The opinion concluded that the MON 810 maize is not harmful to human health and therefore there is no justification for the French safeguard measure. This reinforces the European Commission in terms of the legitimacy of its proposal, based on a similar scientific opinion issued on 31 October 2008 by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) (see EUROPE 9774). Barbara Helfferisch, a spokesperson for EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, said the Commission had not yet analysed the AFSSA's opinion and was basing its work on the EFSA opinion.
France has already made it known officially that it will be continuing with the temporary ban on Mon 810 that was brought in in February 2008 to prevent the maize from being grown on the French mainland. Paris explains that the ban has been introduced for good reason in order to prevent any negative impact on the environment rather than on health of a type of maize that is insect-resistant (the maize stemborer).
In a press release published on 12 February 2009, the French ministry of ecology, energy, sustainable development and town and country planning explains that the AFSSA opinion only covers health issues and does not challenge the safeguard clause decided upon by President Nicolas Sarkozy for environmental reasons. The safeguard clause on the growing of Monsanto 810 in open fields is based on risks judged to be serious to the environment rathert than on health risks (the subject of the AFSSA opinion), it adds. Paris notes that in addition to this, the 4 December 2008 EU Environment Council unanimously requested the EFSA to review before March 2010 its assessment procedure for the environmental dangers of GMOs and add an in-depth investigation of the long-term effects of GMOs. Monsanto's MON 810 is subject to a ten-yearly review that is currently under way.
Speaking in Brussels on 12 February 2009 after a meeting with the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, the French prime minister, Francois Fillon, confirmed this view. He is quoted by Reuters as saying that he was keeping in place the 2008 decision temporarily banning the GMO while awaiting a decision by the European Commission, which France would, of course, respect, he added. In other words, in all likelihood, the qualified majority of Member States required for approving or rejecting draft European Commission legislation would not be met and therefore the European Commission will be forced to submit the issue to the Council of Ministers. If the EU27 ministers cannot reach agreement, the Commission will have three months to decide on whether to force Member States to respect EU rules in this domain. Draft legislation to force Hungary and Austria to repeal their own safeguard measures against MON 810 are already on the table at the Environment Council, which will be deciding on this on 2 March 2009 in Brussels.
Europabio calls for Europe's farmers to be free to choose whether to grow GMOs
Europabio, a European Association of Bioindustries (nothing to do with organic food), says it is time that the EU stopped preventing GMOs from being grown and gave Europe's farmers the same choices as the 13.5 million other farmers in the world who grew 125 million hectares of GMOs in 25 countries in 200, according to an annual report by ISAAA (the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications). Compiling various studies carried out in Europe and published on 12 February 2009, Europabio notes that “the number of EU farmers wanting the choice to cultivate biotech crops is on the increase”. The association urges European ministers to seize the opportunity that will be offered to them in the next few weeks to “end an 11-year moratorium” on the authorisation of “new biotech plants” and to “lift unscientific bans” in a number of Member States. James Ede of the National Farmers' Union in the UK said “Europe's political leaders should respond to the demands of their farmers and offer them the freedom to choose the same tools available to their competitors globally.”
“How can we expect consumer confidence to increase if governments don't base decisions on science or worse still, hide the science?” asked Nathalie Moll of Europabio. (A.N. trans fl)