Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-02-Speech-2-155"
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"en.20020702.7.2-155"2
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vice-chair; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (2002-01-22--2004-07-19)3
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"Mr President, we are not totally against GMOs and their use. However, we are in favour of their use being regulated, as, moreover, the international situation demands: 50 million hectares of land are cultivated in the world using GMOs compared with only 12 000 hectares in Europe. This should prompt us to investigate the state of European research, and the role of Europe in the WTO and the – often unregulated, uncontrolled – use of products containing GMOs in developing countries. Similarly, it should draw attention to the importance of safeguarding biodiversity and of providing guarantees and ensuring consumer safety, for science is not yet able to do this with certainty. However, this is not the right occasion for this.
What disturbs us, however, about the proposals before us and the related work of the rapporteurs is some of the ways the principles of the Cartagena Protocol are supposed to be interpreted. Indeed, it would appear that precautions and transparency, which are the basic elements of the Protocol, are to be interpreted in a way which, at times, even distorts their meaning, especially if we read the second regulation, the regulation on traceability and labelling. There is no trace of a uniform method guaranteeing that operators have taken all the steps necessary to avoid contamination, nor is there a requirement for an authority certifying that these measures have been carried out, nor, moreover, is there consistency between the levels of contamination permitted. The same may be said of the samples to be deposited together with the authorisation application, it being left to the discretion of the applicants for the authorisation whether to take a sample or not. Moreover, it would not appear appropriate to require economic operators to provide evidence of the quality of scientific tests, which, moreover, would be a unilateral requirement since not even the Cartagena Protocol gives any significant consideration to the issue of accountability, putting off any analysis even of the principles until after 4 years from the Protocol’s entry into force.
Again, if the objective is traceability, as far as the precautionary principle is concerned, we fail to understand why an authorisation granted has to be valid for 10 years under one regulation while, under the other regulation, the supporting documentation only has to be retained for five years. We hope, with regard to the work carried out by the rapporteurs and, in particular, Mrs Scheele, who has, nevertheless, succeeded in improving the Commission’s proposal, that the points giving cause for concern will be amended, so that consistency which is at least functional can be achieved."@en1
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