THE MOST important founding principle of the European Union, indeed, its raison d’etre from the outset – the common market – is about to be broken by the European Commission’s decision on Tuesday to allow each member state to go its own way regarding the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops. As EU health and consumer affairs commissioner John Dalli put it, “we are basically giving much more flexibility to member states to restrict the cultivation of GMOs in their countries”.
Or, indeed, to promote them. Thus, for the first time, the single European market is proposed to be set aside, although this radically retrograde step will require the approval of the European Parliament and a qualified majority of the European Council, representing the member states.
The commission’s decision is a clear recognition of, and even response to, deep-seated divisions among member states over GM cultivation and use. Despite years of lobbying by Monsanto and other biotech companies, Ireland, Austria, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg and Poland remain opposed, while the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden are in favour. And the only GM crop to be licensed for 12 years, BASF’s Amflora potatoes, only slipped through after the EU Council of Agriculture Ministers failed to agree and the commissionused its residual powers to make the decision by default last March. That move was greeted by howls of protest from anti-GM campaigners who saw it as opening the floodgates to more such approvals.
Ostensibly, the latest move to give member states more discretion in this area does not affect the EU approval process for GM cultivation, which will continue, based on health and environmental risk assessments by the European Food Safety Authority. “We will not be using this as leverage in any way to get more positive decisions,” Mr Dalli said. But biotech companies have warned that the commission’s proposals are likely to create legal uncertainty and disrupt the EUs single market for agricultural produce, possibly provoking a series of legal challenges. Why, for example, would Amflora be permitted in one country and prohibited in another? That issue is almost certain to be aired in the European Court of Justice, which has been assiduous in protecting the single market.
The commissionappears to have calculated that allowing individual member states to opt out “might accelerate the approval procedure for GMOs for cultivation,” as one of its spokesmen said last month. This would facilitate pro-GM countries to get on with cultivation while giving others, including Ireland, the right to say no. Under the Green Party’s influence, the Government is opposed to GM cultivation here and committed to promoting a “GM-free island”. Concerns about GMOs include contamination of organic crops and the environment, potential destruction of biodiversity and local agriculture, excessive use of pesticides and the unknown effects of GM food on public health as well as how a small number of patent-holding companies would control the food chain.