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Brussels, May 2003
EURO COOP calls for
true Consumer Choice about GM food
European consumers have recently witnessed increased American political pressure on the European Union to resume approvals of genetically modified products. On 13 May 2003, the United States, together with several other countries, initiated a legal action against the European de facto moratorium on the approval of products of biotechnology pursuant to international trade law1. At the heart of this legal action lies the controversial interpretation of the international trade agreements regarding consumer protection and international free trade.
EURO COOP, the European Community of Consumer Co-operatives, has always supported the suspension of GMO authorisations until such time as consumers' basic rights to eat safe food and make informed choices are fully addressed in EU legislation - this is currently not the case since the EU limits labelling to the detectability of DNA in the final product. EURO COOP therefore strongly supports the proposed Regulation for a new labelling scheme based on traceability and segregation currently with the European Parliament2 . We consider this new EU legislation to be key to ensuring consumer protection, and that these higher EU standards are legally justified under international law.
Consumer co-operatives are however concerned that the European Commission has not envisaged complementary EU legislative measures to ensure the success of this reform. EURO COOP believes there is an urgent need to adequately address the issue of GMO contamination all along the food chain, starting with GM seeds contamination in conventional and organic seeds. Such protective measures will be crucial if Europe allows commercial growing of GM crops to recommence. Otherwise, consumer rights to choice about GM food will be reduced to "more or less GMO". In addition to prevention, we must also address the potential economic losses caused by GMO contamination of non-GM and organic farming as well as the important issue of liability. EURO COOP also believes that in order to be able to respond to consumer demand, EU measures should allow for the development and expansion of non-GM agriculture - both organic and non-organic.
EURO COOP is concerned that a premature lifting of the current moratorium in the absence of EU legal measures to avoid contamination all along the food chain would mean the end of consumer choice and contribute to further erosion of consumer confidence.
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- From "Fork to Farm": consumer choice is closely linked to agriculture and environment protection
The recent Eurobarometer of March 2003 " Europeans and Biotechnology in 2002"3 confirms that the vast majority of European consumers do not want to eat GMOs. These are judged not to be useful and to be risky. EURO COOP member organisations' own consumer research, such as the Consumer Jury organised by the Co-operative Group in the UK, confirms these results. These consumer concerns have been listened to by the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament, which are currently in the process of adopting a new EU legislation labelling scheme based on traceability4 . Consumer co-operatives have themselves already responded to these consumer expectations and developed identity preservation systems to offer consumers an alternative to GM foodstuffs.
While convinced that the new EU labelling scheme will further protect consumers, EURO COOP is however concerned that this important piece of legislation risks being jeopardised by a non-implementation of the "Fork to Farm" principle5 . Given that the vast majority of consumers refuse to eat GMOs, we believe that their right to choose must prevail and should be the starting point.
The introduction of GMOs to EU agriculture will pose new challenges to consumers' and farmers' freedom of choice. As a recent report by the Commission's Joint Research Centre6 states, "the percentage of GMOs grown represent an important factor, already a 10% of GM varieties causes significant levels of GM content in non-GM crops". It also concludes that "organic production would not be feasible in a region with GM production".
EURO COOP welcomes the Commission initiative to address the problem of GM contamination, but it is concerned that the Communication from Commissioner Fischler on the "Co-existence of GM, conventional and organic crops" reduces co-existence to an economic problem. While the authorisation to release GMOs in the environment is subject to a health and environmental risk assessment under Directive 2001/18/EC, co-existence measures will be necessary for further risk assessment and management measures. If an unexpected risk related to a widely cultivated GMO were to emerge, co-existence measures would be used to prevent its spreading, according to health or environmental motivations.
- Seeds purity is a pre-requisite for farmer and consumer choice
As seeds are the starting point of the food chain, their purity is key to avoid contamination further down the supply chain. EURO COOP recognises that adventitious contamination is inevitable, but believes that it should be as low as practically achievable. It should definitely be set at a level lower than that for food as adventitious contamination will clearly be amplified during growing. Co-existence measures are key to achieving this objective. We are concerned that the absence of such legal measures would lead to higher tolerance thresholds for GM contamination, water-down the proposed new EU labelling scheme and thus considerably threaten consumer choice.
It is sometimes argued that as co-existence is not a new concept and that crop production practices have existed for generations, there is no need for recourse to legislation. EURO COOP would instead point-out that conventional farmers must respect tolerance thresholds for adventitious presence of GMOs in their products.
If not, they will be obliged to label and sell them as "GM". Organic farmers must comply with stricter rules: their products must in principle be completely exempt of GMOs. On the contrary, GMO growers would suffer no negative consequences if their GM crops were to be "contaminated" by non-GM crops, as they do not have to respect any threshold of "GMO purity", except in the case of certified seed production. EURO COOP views inspection as an important tool in ensuring compliance. But in order to be effective, it must be properly-resourced and carried-out either by public inspection authorities or fully-independent private agencies.
- EURO COOP believes Traceability is a key tool in preventing cross-contamination all along the food chain
Given the limited experience with the impact of GMOs on the environment and human health, the precautionary principle must apply. EURO COOP believes that traceability is key to effective withdrawal or recall of any approved GMOs, should any unforeseen problems arise in the future. Effective traceability and recall systems must be a pre-requisite to any widespread growing of GM crops. Additional requirements for segregation throughout the supply chain would need to be rigorously enforced.
Segregation of GM and non-GM storage all along the food chain is also key to prevent cross-contamination. As mentioned above, consumer co-operatives have developed Identity Preservation systems to offer consumers an alternative to GM foodstuffs. For example, the British EURO COOP member, the Co-operative Group, applies the Food and Drink Federation and British Retail Consortium standards for identity preserved supplies. These standards consist of agreed best practices to be applied all along the food chain, from seed supply to the use of end ingredients in the manufacture of final food products7.
EURO COOP believes that effective systems of traceability would also be of paramount importance in identifying and preventing cross-contamination. Structured systems such as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) would need to be employed to identify critical points for cross-contamination, enabling appropriate corrective measures/monitoring procedures and associated documentation to be put in place. There would need to be effective protocols for testing any traceability systems to verify its efficacy.
Another aspect that would need to be carefully controlled would be deliberate blending or mislabelling of a GM crop as non-GM. There would need to be appropriate safeguards and penalties to prevent this.
EURO COOP insists that segregation is a key tool, but finds that it would be difficult to achieve in the absence of harmonising EU legislation on co-existence.
- EURO COOP calls for harmonised EU legislation on co-existence
EURO COOP is concerned that the recent Commission initiative leaves-out the option of harmonised EU legislation on co-existence. While EURO COOP agrees that specific national measures would be needed to take account of local and regional conditions in each Member State, we nonetheless believe that such adaptations should be contained in a common EU framework establishing the basic objectives and principles applicable to the introduction of management measures for co-existence. This approach would be consistent with the authorisation process regulated at the EU level by Directive 2001/18/EC.
EURO COOP therefore supports the recent vote of the European Parliament Environment Committee, which amended the proposed Regulation in this sense8.
If the "subsidiarity option" were to be adopted, then full competence should be given to Member States to take necessary measures. This is not the case with the Commission proposal as they would not have the competence to introduce GM-free zones.
EURO COOP believes legally binding rules on co-existence will play a key role in resolving problems of liability. Good agricultural practices and guidelines are useful in ensuring well-implement co-existence measures. However, as they are not legally-binding, they impose no legal requirements on producers who do not currently follow them.
- EURO COOP calls for the application of the polluter pays principle
On the question of the costs of co-existence measures intended to prevent genetic contamination, the Commission takes the position that this burden "should fall on the economic operators (farmers, seed suppliers, etc.) who intend to gain a benefit from the specific cultivation model they have chosen". EURO COOP opposes this statement as it implies that the cost of contamination would be spread among all the economic operators concerned; rather, EUROCOOP believes that the "polluter pays principle" should apply: producers and consumers who do not want GMOs should not carry the burden of co-existence measures.
EURO COOP also finds it unacceptable that conventional and organic farmers who have been contaminated - and thus cannot sell their crops - must bear the economic loss encountered by contamination. EURO COOP believes there should be mandatory insurance schemes - linked to authorisations. As mentioned in its comments on GM seeds contamination in conventional seeds of February 20029 , such schemes should be backed-up by contingency funds financed by producers and users of GMOs. It is however important to note that todate no insurance scheme (for example in France and in Scotland) will cover such contamination. Insurers state that the problem with GMOs is that the long- term risks cannot be quantified, and therefore they would expose their companies to unknown levels of future risk.
- EURO COOP calls for a EU liability scheme
EURO COOP calls on the EU Institutions to set up a liability scheme to protect those who have been contaminated by GMOs. The recent cases of GM contamination in Canada and in the US have shown that conventional and organic farmers must support the costs involved in a involuntary or unavailable gene transfer. EURO COOP finds this situation unacceptable and asks the EU policy-makers to take the necessary measures to avoid such cases arising in Europe.
Currently, EU legislation does not provide for such guarantees. Directive 2001/18/EC contains no provisions on liability for acts authorised under the Directive's regulatory scheme. Under Directive 85/374 on product liability, liability is limited to bodily injury and to economic loss suffered by a private consumer, environmental damage is however not included.
EURO COOP was disappointed that the Commission proposal for a Directive on Environmental Liability (COM (2002)17) did not contain provisions tackling damages caused by GMOs. We are therefore pleased that the European Parliament adopted, in first reading on 14 May 2003, an important amendment asking the European Commission to present a proposal to supplement the regulatory framework on liability for damage caused by GMOs with a view to completing the legislation necessary for development in the field of modern biotechnology. The European Parliament asks "the proposal will, in particular, address damage caused by the presence of GMOs in products, the producers of which did not make use of such organisms".
EURO COOP urges the Council and the Commission to follow the European Parliament vote.
- On 13 May 2003, the US have requested consultations with the European Community pursuant to Article 4 of the Understanding on Rules Governing the Settlement of Disputes, Article 11 of the SPS agreement, Article 14 of the TBT Agreement and Article XXII of GATT1994.
- See EURO COOP Position Paper
- Europeans and Biotechnology in 2002, Eurobarometer 58.0, p.1.
- Proposed Regulations on GM food/feed (COM(2001) 425) and traceability of GMOs (COM(2001) 182). For more information.
- The White Paper on Food Safety of January 2000 enshrines the "Farm to fork" principle. The " Fork to Farm " concept is used in the DG Research 6th General Framework Programme (Life sciences and Biotechnology Work Programme)
- Scenarios for co-existence of genetically modified, conventional and organic crops in European Agriculture, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies and European Commission Joint Research Centre, May 2002, p. 2.
- The main identified stages of the food chain are the following: supply of seed - planting - cultivation - harvesting - transportation -discharge and storage at collection points - drying- storage - outloading from collection points - transport to port facilities - discharge and storage to port facilities - outloading to ship - discharge and storage - transport to processor - discharge to processor - processor- ingredient/commodity user.
- On 22 May 2003, the EP Environment Committee adopted an amendment to Directive 2001/18/EC which would allow and require Member States to take "all measures necessary to ensure that at all stages of the placing on the market of the GMOs placed on the market as or in products the notifier, any person selling the product or any user of it, take appropriate measures to prevent the unintended presence of the GMO or parts thereof in other products".
- See EURO COOP Position Paper.
For further information, contact:
Dónal WALSHE, Secretary General
or
Aude L'hirondel, Food Policy Officer
Tel.: +32.(0)2.285.00.70 - Fax: +32.(0)2.231.07.57
E-mail: info@eurocoop.org
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EURO COOP is the European Association of Consumer Co-operatives. Founded in 1957, EURO COOP has its roots in the consumer co-operative movement launched in the mid-19th century across Europe. Today, it represents over 20 million consumer-members in 15 EU and accession countries. Created in order to protect the interests of their members, consumer co-operatives' aims include satisfying the needs and expectations of their members, while favouring a global approach towards production and distribution and taking into account environmental problems, consumer health and social responsibility. EURO COOP priorities include working for sustainable consumption.
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