EU states free to choose on GM cultivation
The vote has won a mixed response from lobbyists on both sides of a long-running debate. While EU states can opt out of any eventual GM approvals, environmental campaigners say the new law is not robust enough. Some figures in the GM industry are also unhappy, and say the compromise means countries can to reject GM crops for unscientific reasons.
Mairead McGuinness, MEP and one of 14 vice-presidents of the European Parliament, said the vote helps establish a two-phase approach to EU states opting to ban GMO (genetically modified organism) planting on their own soil.
Member states can participate in GMO authorisation procedures at an EU level. They will be counted in any vote on a GM crop, while they can still impose domestic bans on any approved crops.
“It has taken years to reach this position with division between and within member states on GMOs,” said Ms McGuinness.
“The new directive allows member states to pass legally binding acts restricting or prohibiting the cultivation of GMO crops in their territory even where these crops have been authorised by the EU,” she said.
Member states can use grounds such as agriculture policy objectives, land use, socio-economic impacts, public policy and co-existence to restrict of prohibit GMOs in their territory.
Such restrictions are applicable to both individual crops and groups of GMOs.
Ireland has no commercial cultivation of GMO products, nor are any likely in the short term. Yet, Ireland like many EU member states is a significant importer of GM soya as a protein source in animal feed.
Ms McGuinness said: “Currently, the cultivation of GMOs requires authorisation through a central EU system and includes safety assessments by European Food Safety Authority.
“Such restrictions are intended to be temporary and must be supported by new scientific information which indicates that the cultivation of GMO crops poses a health risk to humans or to the environment,” she said.
GM crops are grown in the Americas and Asia. The UK favours some crops but key EU states like France and Germany oppose them. An earlier attempt to agree a compromise on GM cultivation failed in 2012.
“This agreement will ensure more flexibility for member states who wish to restrict the cultivation of the GMOs,” said Frederique Ries, a Belgian member who steered the measures through the EU Parliament.
However, Beat Spaeth, a director at EuropaBio in Brussels, told Bloomberg: “It is a bad precedent for the internal market. It’s also a bad precedent for science-based regulation. What’s next, a ban on yellow-coloured cars?”
The EU ended a six-year ban on new GM products in 2004. The BASF potato is no longer grown in the EU, leaving a Monsanto corn variety approved in 1998 as the only GM crop commercially grown in the EU28.
EU governments have already signalled support for the legislation, making approval by them a formality in the coming weeks.
