Gormley’s stance of GMO regulation challenged

ENVIRONMENT Minister John Gormley’s account (July 12) of his failure at the Environment Council in Brussels to stand alongside his Belgian, Greek, Hungarian and Italian ministerial colleagues who voted against the draft EU regulation allowing products with up to 0.9% GMO content to be labelled as organic needs be taken with a large grain of salt.

The level Mr Gormley agreed to is nine times greater than the 0.1% limit, the lowest level at which GMOs can be detected, put forward by the European Parliament in May.

He says Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan had already agreed to this in the Agriculture Council, so his hands were tied. But hers was a ‘political’ decision, not the legally-binding, definitive decision that he made two weeks later. Mr Gormley could in fact have said no. He should have insisted on the position which the European Parliament had adopted of refusing an organic labelling to a product with more than 0.1% GMO content. His claim that ‘A’ list items are only ever ‘rubber-stamped’ is without substance. Any minister can request an A-list item to be moved to the B-list for discussion and decision.

The very least he could have done was to enter a written declaration signalling a change in Irish Government policy on GMOs. The question is why he chose not to do any of these things?

Blaming administrative procedures for political failures is the oldest Fianna Fáil trick in the bag.

Proinsias de Rossa MEP

Labour European Office

Liberty Hall

Dublin 1