Brussels, Belgium
January 26, 2005
By
Ned Stafford
The Scientist
Agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel wants new rules
for genetically modified crops
Newly
installed European Agriculture Commissioner
Mariann
Fischer Boel has signaled a major shift in European
Union policies toward genetically modified (GM) crops, telling a
German newspaper last week that she believes the European Union
should issue guidelines for acceptable distances between GM and
non-GM crops.
Currently, the
European Union leaves it up to member states to regulate sowing
of GM crops so they do not contaminate adjacent non-GM fields
with GM pollen. Coexistence of GM and non-GM farm fields is so
controversial in several EU nations, including Germany, that
Fischer Boel's predecessor, Franz Fischler, simply avoided the
issue.
In an
interview
with the daily Berliner Zeitung, Fischer Boel said
that GM and non-GM fields must be separated to avoid GM
contamination. However, she said: "Regulations must not be so
hard that the producers of GM crops have no chance to come to
market."
Some German political
observers saw Fischer Boel's comments as a veiled reference to
Germany's
new strict
GM law, which holds planters of GM crops liable for
economic damages to adjacent non-GM fields even if they followed
planting instructions and other regulations. Many GM crop
supporters see the law as an indirect attempt to stop GM
planting in Germany. The law was spearheaded by German
Agriculture Minister Renate Künast, a member of the Green party,
which is a junior coalition partner of Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder, SPD party.
Schroeder's main opposition parties,
the CDU/CSU and the FDP, both issued statements applauding
Fischer Boel's initiative while at the same time criticizing
Künast's "ideologically conditioned go-it-alone" law.
In an interview with The Scientist,
Michael Mann, spokesman for Fischer Boel, acknowledged that
there were issues with the new German law in terms of "whether
it was proportional" to the legitimate needs of co-existence.
"We have asked for a clarification,"
Mann said, adding that the requested study will also look at
current GM planting regulations in other EU nations.
Based on that study,
expected to be completed by the end of the year, Fischer Boel
and her fellow members on the European Commission, the European
Union's executive body, will decide what sort of coexistence
regulations would be feasible for Europe, Mann said.
When asked whether Fischer Boel in
general supports GM crops and research, Mann said: "She does, if
GM crops are kept separate [from non-GM fields]. She believes GM
crops are a reality; they are with us and need to be properly
regulated."
Christoph Then, a GM
expert for Greenpeace Germany, which supported passage of the
new German law, told The Scientist that Fischer Boel's
comments mean that "the issue of coexistence has returned to the
EU level."
But Then declined to speculate on the
significance of her comments to the anti-GM crop movement. "This
is a change of policy in the European Union, but it is too early
to know what it means," he said.
Then said that however
the issue develops at the European Commission level,
Greenpeace's goal will continue to be a total moratorium on GMOs
in Europe, especially for rapeseed and corn.
The organization will continue to
push its theme that unless it can be definitely proven that GMOs
are safe, they should be considered unsafe, Then said. "And with
the evidence we have now, we believe they are not safe."
To that end, Greenpeace Europe this
year plans to issue two reports, Then said. The first, which
might be issued by late February, would be a concrete
Europe-wide "risk assessment" of the effect of GM crops on
non-GM fields.
The second report
would be a "more abstract" study of the basic question of the
overall safety of GM organisms. It would be designed to spark a
major "scientific discussion" in Europe on the use of GMOs, Then
said. "We think we need to come back to the basic scientific
question of what we really know about the safety of GMOs," he
said.
Links for this article
Mariann Fischer Boel
http://europa.eu.int/comm/commission_barroso/fischer-boel/index
_en.htm
"Obligatory standards for the gene crop farming," Berliner
Zeitung, January 20, 2005.
http://www.BerlinOnline.de/berliner-zeitung/politik/414070.html
N. Stafford, "GM law 'a blow for science,'" The Scientist,
December 1, 2004.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20041201/01 |