NOTE: Some very interesting comments from Corrine Lepage (item 3).
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LE MONDE COVERAGE OF EU PLANS TO UNBLOCK GMOS
[English translation courtesy GM-free Ireland follow links for original French text]

1.Brussels plan to unblock the GMO dossier
Herve Morin et Philippe Ricard
Le Monde [France], 10 June 2010

2.Box: Transgenic GM contamination in Germany
Le Monde [France], 10 June 2010

3.Corrine Lepage, former Environment Minister (1995-1997) and Member of the European Parliament
"They are turning their backs on the Precautionary Principle"
Remarks compiled by Herve Morin
Le Monde [France], 10 June 2010

4.Brussels wants more flexible conditions for growing GMOs
Le Monde with Agence France Presse, 4 June 2010
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1.BRUSSELS PLAN TO UNBLOCK THE GMO DOSSIER
Le Monde [France], 10 June 2010
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2010/06/09/le-plan-de-bruxelles-pour-debloquer-le-dossier-ogm_1370050_3244.html

Has the European Commission found the way to unblock the thorny GMO dossier? The Old Continent, strongly opposed to genetically modified crops, only grows 100,000 hectares, compared to 134 million in the rest of the world. And the President of the Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has never hidden his intention to end this exception.

Brussels is examining the possibility of allowing greater flexibility for the Member States to ban the cultivation of GM seeds in their own territories, even if they have been authorised at the European level. In exchange, countries hostile to biotechnologies would have to stop blocking the approval of new transgenic varieties. The Commissioner in charge of health, John Dalli from Malta, is expected to make a more concrete proposal in July. This will then need to be approved by the European Council and Parliament. But France has requested a discussion of the issue as soon as Friday 11 June, during a meeting of the Environment Council in Luxemburg.

What’s the proposed plan, in concrete terms? Mr. Dalli intends to modify the existing legislation, so as to allow Member States to ban GMOs without being obliged to invoke a safeguard clause. An opt-out clause would be introduced, which governments could invoke without particular justification to ban cultivation on a case-by case basis. The aim is clear: preserve the current European authorisation procedure for GMOs, while giving Member States more autonomy, notably of the political kind. At this stage, the use of the safeguard clauses effectively requires health or environmental reasons. Without such reasons, the EU exposes itself to complaints at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

[Note from GMFI: The last 2 sentences are inaccurate. Under current EU law, the Commission does not allow Member States to ban the cultivation of GM crops by invoking the Safeguard Clause UNLESS (a) the Member States also provide "new scientific evidence" and (b) the pro-GM European Food Safety Authority accepts this evidence as valid which it generally refuses to do. Moreover, it is unclear wether acceptance of such evidence by EFSA prevents the USA and other pro-GM countries from filing related trade disputes via the WTO.]

Safeguard clause

In March, the College of European Commissioners put an end to a long blockage, by approving the cultivation of the Amflora potato, the second authorisation since Monsanto’s MON 810 maize. A green light that is highly criticised by the defenders of the environment. Mr. Dalli had then promised to make his views on the European approvals mechanism known by the Summer. The Eurocrats observe that the current system didn’t stop eight countries, including France, Austria, Germany and Hungary, to ban the cultivation of various GMOs on their territories based on a safeguard clause. In four cases, the Commission attempted to secure the lifting of these bans, whose scientific validity is questionned by the European Food Safety Authority, but the Member States rejected these attempts.

The new approach aims to combine the modification of the existing legal framework with a new recommendation for the co-existence of GM and non-GM crops. The Commission also wants to minimise the impact of this reform on the single market: there could be no restriction on the placing on the market and trade of GM products, while the opt-out would only apply to cultivation. "There can be no impediments to the free trade of appoved GMOs (...) in the context of the single market", according to documents released by the Commission, which does not foresee any reform of EFSA, whose operation has been strongly criticised.

These proposals have not yet produced an official response in Paris. The Secretary of State for the Ecology, Chantal Joanno, went to Brussels for  a meeting with Commissioner Dalli on 1 June. She asked him to explain the compatibility of the current discussions with the European treaties and WTO rules. Paris does not want these new proposals to interfere with the road map unanimously agreed by the Member States under the French Presidency of the Union in late 2008, which called for a more in-depth review of the authorsisation procedure and the workings of EFSA.

It has been made known that the French Agriculture Ministry is opposed to the introduction of the Subsidiarity Principle for the cultivation of GMOs, which could bring distortions of competitivity. In the Ecology Ministry, they insist on the intended purpose of the safeguard clause: being certain of te ability to grow crops without risk of contamination.

At Greenpeace France, Arnaud Apoteker feels that behind the "seductive" aspect of these proposals, lies a trap: "The text makes no mystery of the fact that the intention is to accelerate the approvals. But the current implementation of the risk assessments is not acceptable."

For James Borel, Executive Vice-President of the American agro-chemicals group DuPont, the Brussels proposal represents "a great step forward" even if its not "ideal", according to the Reuters agency. Three approval requests are already on Commissionner Dalli's desk, for Bt 11 maizes from the Swiss group Syngenta, BT 1507 from the American group Pioneer (a DuPont subsidiary), and for the re-approval of MON 810 from the American Monsanto.
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2.[BOX] Contamination by transgenic maize in Germany

Traces of a transgenic maize that has not been approved for cultivation in Europe have been detected in seven German regions. The contamination appears to affect 0.1 per cent of seeds, i.e. a hundred plants per hectare, according to Greenpeace. The American [company] Pioneer Hi-bred’s German subsidiary, which markets conventional seeds contaminated by its transgenic maize NK603, estimates a much lower contamination level of around 0.03 per cent.

The seed company claims less than 2,000 hectares have been affected, while the environmental group reports 3,000 hectares. According to Greenpeace, the Agriculture Minister of Lower Saxony, where Pioneer is based, has known about this since March, but only informed his Environmental counterpart a month later. According to Deutsche Welle radio, it was only in early June, following a legal decision, that Pioneer disclosed the list of the seed resellers that have been contaminated.
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3.Corrine Lepage, former Environment Minister (1995-1997) and Member of the European Parliament
"THEY ARE TURNING THEIR BACK ON THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE"
Remarks compiled by Herve Morin
Le Monde [France], 10 June 2010:
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2010/06/09/corinne-lepage-on-tourne-le-dos-au-principe-de-precaution_1370053_3244.html

The lawyer Corrine Lepage, former Environment Minister (1995-1997), Member of the European Parliament, is also a founding member of the Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN).

How do you feel about the European Commission's new proposals for the cultivation of GMOs?

Of course I can only be delighted that we recognise the [Member] States' right to not cultivate GMOs. But it's a case of drawing consequences from what is the de facto reality: the Barroso Commission has been trying for years to take legal action against countries which don't want GMOs. Without success, since there is no majority against those who adopt this policy.

What worries me much more is that these proposals form the outline of an unequivocal step away from research on the middle- and long-term effects of GMOs. The seed companies have succeeded in stopping systematic 90-day feeding trials on rats. We are turning our backs on the Precautionary Principle.

While the issue has now been on the table for fifteen years, its is mind-boggling that there has so far been no public research on the health risks of GMOs - apart from one Austrian study which was shot down in flames. The national and European food safety authorities thus only provide public opinions on secret studies made by the seed companies.

Didn't the Union demand an improvement in the risk assessments, under the French presidency?

The European Food Safety was supposed to reform its procedures, which has not been done. We were supposed to have studies on the benefits and problems to see if "statistically significant" effects are also "pathologically significant". This is the debate that has been refused. They are attempting to delude the European people, as they won't carry out any in-depth study on GMOs until they have been forced into massive consumption.

What is the French position?

France is in a difficult position, since CRIIGEN [the Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering] obtained the partial cancellation of a decreee to transpose a[n EC] Directive which defined, amongs other things, the rules for approval of GMOs. The Council of State [the French national government body that provides the executive branch with legal advice and acts as the administrative court of last resort] has given France a 30 June deadline to vote a new law. The Government can be attacked for failure to transpose a Directive. I wonder on what grounds the recently announced field trial of GM grapevines could be allowed...
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4.BRUSSELS WANTS MORE FLEXIBLE CONDITIONS FOR GROWING GMOS
Le Monde with Agence France Presse, 4 June 2010
http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2010/06/04/bruxelles-veut-assouplir-les-conditions-de-cultures-d-ogm_1368076_3214.html#ens_id=1368075

[Photo: Huge NO GMO sign plowed in field. Caption: "Greenpeace fears the Commission will use this proposal to fast-track cultiation approvals."]

The European Commission wants to unblock the approvals for cultivation of GM crops in the European Union, and, to this end, is proposing to let governments have the freedom to ban them on their territories. The Commissioner for Health, John Dalli, who is in charge of this sensitive dossier,. announced this solution to get out of the impasse and hopes to quickly finalise his proposal so as to give him legal security, according to a source close to the dossier on Friday 4 June.

He intends to present it on 13 July, but has not excluded doing so on the meeting of the Commission planned for 6 July. He has agreed to consult all the stakeholders to get the biggest consensus. The Greenpeace organisation which is very critical of the "indigestible GMO menu concocted by apprentice cook José Manuel Barroso [President of the European Commission", has welcomed "the right of the States and regions to declare themselves GMO-free".

"But we refuse to let the Commission use this proposal to fast-track approvals for cultivation", said one of its campaigners, Marco Contiero. There are three applications on the Commissioner’s desk for the BT 11 maizes from the Swiss group Syngenta, BT 1507 from the American group Pioneer, and MON 910 from the American group Monsanto, for its re-authorisation.

"MONSANTO'S SEEDS ARE NOT MADE FOR THE EU"

Mr. Dalli told his interlocutors there are no immediate plans for new GM cultivation approvals. The Commissioner got burned by the "upheavals" caused by the surprise approval given last March for the German group BASF's genetically modified Amflora potato. The bans could cover a country's entire territory, or only regions, and could apply to one or more GMOs, They would not need to be a approved by the Commission, as has been the case up to now.

A first debate is expected during the meeting of the Environment Ministers  on 10 and 11 June in Luxemburg, even before these proposals are made official. Many countries are worried about the contamination of conventional or organic crops via dispersal of GM seeds, and consider that the advice of scientists regarding the approvals that is taken into account by Brussels does not address this aspect.

"There has to be an expertise which people can trust, and GMOs adapted to the specific needs of the EU", explained a European diplomat, emphasizing that "Monsanto’s seeds are not made for the EU. They require vast areas witout co-existence problems or small field structures".

"I DON’T SEE THE BENEFIT FOR SOCIETY"

Seven countries, including France and Germany, have banned the cultivation of MON 810 because of the risk of contaminating conventional and organic crops in the area. But the governments don’t want to close the door on GMOs. "Maybe one day they could provide solutions by reducing the use of [irrigation] water and chemical inputs", said the Secretary of State for the Environment, Chantal Jouanno, in early March. "For the moment, I can clearly see the financial benefits, but not the benefit for society", she added.

GMO cultivation is declining in Europe, a victim of rejection by public opinon and of its nefarious impacts on the environment. The area cultivated with MON 810 went down from 106,737 hectares in 2008 to 94,749 ha in 2009. Only six countries grow this genetically modified maize: Spain (76,000 hectares compared to 79,000 ha in 2008), Portugal (5,000 ha compared to 4,000 ha in 2008), Czech Republic (6,480 ha compared to 8,000 ha), Romania (3,000 ha compared 6,000 ha), Poland (3,000 ha) and Slovakia (875 ha compared to 1,900 ha).