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REGULATIONS
The European Parliament has approved the world's strictest regulations for the labeling and traceability of genetically engineered foods.
Another change: Highly refined foods such as corn oil and sugar that are derived from transgenic crops must be labeled as such even though they generally contain no recombinant DNA or proteins produced from it. EU food law now requires labeling only when recombinant DNA or proteins produced from it are detectable in lab tests. Europe now imports billions of dollars' worth of U.S. soybeans and soybean products each year, primarily for feed. Under current law, genetically modified animal feed does not require labeling in the EU, nor do approved individual soybean strains have to be separated and traced back to the farm of origin. But under the proposed rules, individual strains must be labeled and traceable from farm to market. During parliamentary debate, several even more restrictive amendments were offered but failed to win approval. One would have required labeling of meat, eggs, and dairy products derived from livestock raised on transgenic feed. Before the new rules can take effect, they must be approved by a qualified majority of the European Commission and reapproved in two further votes by the European Parliament. The environmental groups Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace hail the new rules as a victory for consumers. "This decision is welcome, especially considering attempts to weaken and undermine it," Greenpeace says. In contrast, biotechnology industry associations in both Europe and the U.S. and the U.S. government characterize the new rules as impractical "madness" that hopefully will be altered by the European Commission. "These proposals are not science based. They are purely a political intervention for reasons that are difficult to distinguish from protectionism," says L. Val Giddings, vice president for food and agriculture at the Biotechnology Industry Organization in the U.S. "The proposals will seriously impair trade in agriculture biotech products and make it harder for developing countries to reap the benefits of a promising new technology to address hunger and malnutrition and reduce environmental stress on cropland," says a statement from the U.S. Mission to the EU in Brussels. "The arbitrary reduction to a 0.5% threshold instead of 1% as proposed by the [European] Commission is unrealistic," says Simon Barber, director of the Plant Biotechnology Unit at EuropaBio. "Cross-pollination in the farming environment and some mixing in the storage, distribution, and processing stages will be inevitable, so these low levels are impossible to achieve." Labeling highly processed products that are derived from transgenic crops is a system open to fraud because no scientific verification is possible, he adds. Despite these problems, most observers do not expect the European Commission to make significant changes in the proposals. "I have not seen many signs that they are willing to acknowledge either their own legal obligations [under the World Trade Organization] or scientific data and the rule of reason," Giddings says. U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick has repeatedly warned members of the European Parliament and various member states that these proposals are not implementable and violate WTO law. The U.S.has already lodged an informal complaint with the WTO about the proposed rules. |
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