Brussels, 9 March 2006: Today, the Austrian Presidency will initiate a Council discussion about the scientific safety assessment of biotech crops as well as the EU decision making procedure for approving such crops which have received positive safety assessments from Europe’s own independent scientific body. 

In 2002, all Member States together established the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and agreed that this institution “should be an independent scientific source of advice, information and risk communication in order to improve consumer confidence”^[1]. 

Since its formation in 2002, EFSA has met its objective to provide scientific advice on all matters with a direct or indirect impact on food and feed safety. EuropaBio believes EFSA must not be distracted from fulfilling its original objectives by individual Member States that are diametrically opposed to biotech crops because of what can only logically be seen as short term political decision making. Furthermore, the same Member States are undermining an institution which they themselves established, risking undermining public confidence in a science based safety assessment and in science itself in their bid to deny access to this technology across all of Europe. 

Less than three years ago, the European Union agreed the most comprehensive and the strictest approval process for biotech crops in the world, not to mention probably the most lengthy. This process was agreed by all Member States, the European Commission and the European Parliament. In particular, individual Member States, the same as who are undermining EFSA and the role of independent scientific advice in GMO approvals, have called into question a process known as ‘comitology’, but only where this process applies to biotech crops. Comitology applies to many other areas of EU decision making that fall within safety and risk management, such as pharmaceuticals, food and chemicals. To attack this process when only related to the approval of biotech crops demonstrates that these Member States will try every possible means to circumvent the rules to block the approval of safe new GMO products.   

Biotech crops are increasingly being grown all over the world, including in five EU countries (Czech Rep, France, Germany, Portugal & Spain). The evidence is that European countries and public opinion are increasingly less negative and more open to biotech crops. Yet a small minority of Member States are effectively trying to block the growth in acceptance of biotech crops in Europe and deny European consumers and farmers the choice to use labelled, safe products. Because these Member States are unable to do this through the current system, they have resorted to challenging not only EFSA and its independent scientific assessment but they are also calling into question a key decision-making process in the European Union. It is unacceptable that individual Member States opposed to biotech crops for non-scientific reasons, should be allowed to dictate to the rest. 

Key Facts

• All Member States in agreement with the European Commission and the European Parliament established the current regulatory system for the approval and labelling of GMO products in Europe.
• Ten years of growing GM crops and eating GM foods. GM technologies are not new and GM crops have been grown around the world commercially for 10 years. They have been consumed for over 10 years with not one single recorded negative health incident.
• On the contrary: improved yields and increased food security have been attained while cutting the use of spraying, minimising the soil erosion that conventional weed control methods entail, and reducing carbon emissions through reduced reliance on fuel-intensive crop maintenance.
• In a study by PG Economics^[2] published last October farmers using the technology increased their income by US$27 billion during the period 1996 to 2004 with significant, additional  environmental benefits delivered; the accumulative economic benefits during the nine years to developing countries ($15 billion), exceeded benefits to industrial countries ($12 billion).
• In 2005 there was an 11% increase in the global cultivation of GM crops. Last year, some 8.5 million farmers planted 90 million hectares of biotech crops in some 21 countries, up from 17 countries in 2004, and the number of farmers growing these crops increased by 250,000. For comparisons sake, there were 97 million hectares of arable land in the EU in 2003 - last years global GM crop acreage of 90 million hectares would “cover” 93% of Europe’s total arable land.^[3]
• Other continents are adopting GM technologies very rapidly and are therefore beginning to gain a competitive edge on European agriculture. About 75% (and increasing) of animal feed in Europe contains GM ingredients, much of which is imported. The number of labelled products on sale is increasing. The import of GM soy into Europe is increasing.
• “The future competitiveness of Europe’s agricultural and food processing industries will depend on plant genomics, biotechnology and their smart application…Europe’s position is declining as a consequence of the political inertia caused by the polarised and increasingly heated debate between opponents and advocates…”^[4]

For more information, contact 

Adeline Farrelly

Tel: +32 2 735 0313    Direct: +32 2 739 1174    Mobile: +32 475 93 17 24

Email: a.farrelly@europabio.org 

Simon Barber, Tel: +32 2 735 0313 Direct: +32 2 739 1172 Mobile: +32 476 44 24 20

Email: s.barber@europabio.org 

About EuropaBio

EuropaBio, the European Association for Bioindustries, has 60 direct members operating worldwide and 25 national biotechnology associations representing some 1500 small and medium sized enterprises involved in research and development, testing, manufacturing and distribution of biotechnology products.

http://www.europabio.org

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