EU Commission will ask five EU member states to lift GM bans

The EU Commission will ask a number of EU Member States to lift their bans on certain EU approved GM products on November 29th at the Regulatory Committee meeting in Brussels. Five Member States (1) have national bans on 5 EU-approved biotech crops.  These bans were imposed using the safeguard clause of Directive 90/220 that permits such bans if there are real safety concerns, but that also requires that new scientific information be provided to support such bans. In July 2004, the European Food Safety Authority reinforced earlier opinions by the European Commission’s Scientific Committee and confirmed that these various national bans were not scientifically justified (2) – there is no information to support their claims that these products are unsafe.

“The fact of the matter is that the EU’s Food Safety Authority has rejected all of the “new” information provided by these Member States. They have no scientific basis to maintain their bans,” says Simon Barber, Director of the Plant Biotechnology Unit at EuropaBio, the EU association for bioindustries.

The Commission in its role as guardian of the treaty is upholding EU law by requesting these countries to withdraw their bans. “The Commission is doing its job, the Member States are flouting the law that they put in place,” says Simon Barber.

This move is the new Commission’s first real test of its commitment towards implementing the single market rules on GM products.

References

(1) Countries and products concerned

Austria:

• Bayer CropScience T25 maize (28/04/2000),

• Syngenta Bt176 maize (13/02/1997),

• Monsanto MON810 maize (10/06/1999)

France:

• Bayer CropScience oilseed rape Topas 19/2 (16/11/1998) and

• MS1xRF1 (16/11/1998)

Germany:

• Syngenta Bt 176 maize (31/03/2000)

Greece:

• Bayer CropScience oilseed rape Topas 19/2 (08/09/1998)

Luxembourg:

• Syngenta Bt 176 maize (07/02/1997)

(2) EFSA website: http://www.efsa.eu.int/science/gmo/gmo_opinions/catindex_en.html

EuropaBio, the European Association for Bio-industries, has 33 corporate members operating worldwide and 24 national biotechnology associations representing some 1200 small and medium sized enterprises involved in research and development, testing, manufacturing and distribution of biotechnology products.

Further reading 

What are the benefits of GM crops and what can they do?
http://www.europabio.org/documents/140404/ne_140404_benefits.htm

Plants of the future – a European vision of genomics and biotechnology to 2025
http://www.europabio.org/relatedinfo/Plantgenbrochure.pdf