Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-12-Speech-3-107"
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"en.20000412.3.3-107"2
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"Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, mean that industry and, ultimately, human beings themselves are, in the name of health, medicine, larger harvests, insect-resistant crops and other supposed forms of future progress and improvements to human existence, embarking upon a path towards an unknown destination. The path may one day prove to have led to something which is the total opposite of all the promises which were given when the journey was begun. I want to issue this warning
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The European Union needs new, tighter regulations in place of the first and still current directives concerning GMOs from 1991. Since 1998, the Commission’s proposals have been under discussion. Further delays would be a mistake.
As a Swedish Christian Democrat Member of the European Parliament, I want to state that it must never be the GMO industry and economic interests which are allowed to govern legislation and regulations. The representatives of these have, on repeated occasions, expressed the view that Europe has “fallen behind” the GMO industry in, above all, the United States and China, that the GMO industry cannot be “developed” as “freely” in Europe and that opportunities for new jobs and businesses “are being lost” in the EU’s fifteen Member States.
Our political decisions must instead be guided by the concept of stewardship and not by manipulation of the genetic code. Our task is to hand the earth and the environment over to future generations in as good a state as possible. We must be able to show that, on the basis of stewardship and the precautionary principle, human beings have a desire to forgo what might appear to be short-term “gains” in favour of higher and significantly more long-term values such as a concern for creation and for genetic diversity.
In purely practical terms, this means regulations which guarantee a minimised risk of the spread of GMOs, a halt to the use of antibiotic resistance markers, an increase in independent research into the risks presented by GMOs, liability for damages based on the principle that those who release GMOs into the environment with deleterious effects upon health or the environment should be held strictly liable, long-term evaluations of the socio-economic and environmental consequences of the release of GMOs into the environment, permanent labelling of GMO products, compliance with all current regulations, such as the Biosafety Protocol, and an open application and decision-making process in which the public are entitled to express an opinion and in which each application is dealt with separately and no simplified application procedures are approved."@en1
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