Assessment and recommendations for Greek presidency proposal discussed at 2nd May
Main content of the proposal
1. The legal base of the proposal and legal certainty for option 2
The European Parliament improved the original Commission proposal regarding the legal basis; the Greek Presidency however did not take this over in their compromise proposal. Previous legal opinions from the Council (11 April 2011) underlines the legal challenges via WTO rules.
It would be important to change the legal basis of the whole proposal from article 114 of the treaty to article 192 (article 192 refers to environmental, thus foresees the protection of the environment etc. as high priority, this would increase the legal solidity of the whole text).
EU-Parliaments text: "Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 192(1) thereof, [Am 1]" (the Commission proposal foresees Article 114 as legal basis for the proposal)
→ recommendation following the Parliament text.
2. Approving national or regional bans
The Council is proposing 2 different ways of agreeing bans.
Option One: Agreeing bans with the GM industry:
Option one is for the applicant for a GMO (ie the biotech company) to agree to not include a country or region in its application.
This means that if a country wants to prevent the cultivation of a GM crop on its territory, it would have to first agree this in advance with the biotech company seeking an authorisation. The small change that the European Commission would be the communication channel between biotech companies and the government can not be seen as substantial improvement
This idea is inacceptable on a number of grounds:
- · it treats sovereign states and private companies as equals and gives the GM industry a formalised role in policy-making.
- · the current text would encourage member states to get agreements with biotech companies, demoting the need for any rigorous scrutiny of the health and environmental risk assessment carried out by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
- · there are no rights for countries to force the company to restrict the application, they can only make a request and the company can decide whether to accept it or not.
- · It seems unrealistic that biotech industry would accept this for any bigger member state
→ Maximal recommandation > delete Article 1, - paragraphs 1 -2.
To avoid bigger harm : support the amendments from France about clarification that biotech companies have a period of 30 days to react to the request to exclude a national territory from the EU wide application of a GM crop.
→ Minimum recommendation> secure transparency in the negotiations between governments and the applicant:
Add end of Article 1, para 1 the sentence:
The Commission informs other governments and the European Parliament about the outcome of member state request and in case of any specific agreements between a member state and the applicants also about these specific agreements.
Option Two: If biotech industry does not agree
The Greek presidency proposal makes it obligatory for member states to use option 1 - governments to ask the biotech industry for consent to ban a GM crop nationally- before they can use a list of grounds for a national restriction or prohibition of a ban.
This new obligation implements a direct demand from the biotech industry and give the biotech companies even more power.
→ Minimum recommendation> delete: Where the notifier/applicant opposes the adjustment of the geographical scope of its notification/application corresponding to a request made by a Member State in accordance with paragraph 1, that It would raise strong public concerns, if Environment ministers are favouring a demand from the biotech company, in order to develop a sound proposal for national bans.
→ recommendation: add more grounds to the list as biodiversity,
Better environment risk assessment - outstanding promises:
The French ministries tabled an amendment for a new recital 2a. This amendment reaffirmed the unanimous demand of Environment ministers from December 2008, for stricter environmental risk assessment. For more than 5 years the Commission has failed to act. All countries should support this demand:
(2a) As a matter of priority, risk assessment carried out by the European Food Safety Authority pursuant to this directive or to Regulation 1829/2003 should be strengthened. …. Revised guidelines on risk assessment concerning GMOs should be adopted in a legislative act.