Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-24-Speech-4-138"
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"en.20021024.6.4-138"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too have, on numerous occasions in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, bemoaned the fact that seed regulations are being pushed to such an extent under the comitology procedure. I have said that I think it would make more sense if the Commission held fire on the regulation for GMOs in seed under the comitology procedure until Parliament has completed the current procedure. We need the new seed regulations to be consistent with the regulations on GMOs in food and feed and on the traceability and labelling of GMOs.
These issues were hotly debated at first reading here in this House as recently as the summer. The resolution was extremely tight on several points, especially the question of threshold values. We are now waiting for the Council of Ministers to reach a decision, which since last week has again been postponed to December. A final decision by the Council cannot now be expected before the middle of next year. I think it would be far better if the Commission were to keep its paper in the pending tray for another year, so that the threshold values can be adjusted to the regulations currently on the agenda. So much for the procedure.
Now for a brief material comment. The question of whether GMOs are a good or a bad thing does not belong in today's debate. But as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf refers in his question to positions on GMOs, I wish to do likewise. It is clear from all the Member's questions that there is something he has failed to understand or does not wish to admit. There is a difference between releasing GMOs under Directive 2001/18, on the one hand, and setting a technical limit value for the adventitious presence of GMOs in conventional seed by amending the annexes to the seed directives, on the other.
These directives contain an array of technical rules and requirements on the quality and marketing of seed in the EU. Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf himself said that the actual directives were adopted in the usual manner after hearing the European Parliament and that it was decided in the process that certain technical details were to be regulated under the regulatory committee procedure. The committee does not of course decide on the release of GMOs, it decides how to define a further quality standard for conventional seed and it has the jurisdiction to do so under current EU law. The Commissioner said as much.
The scientific committee has, in its turn, confirmed, as do countless other scientific works, that statistically halfway reliable statements do not brook a limit value of less than 0.1%. This is the cut-off point. There is no such thing as a 0% value, and nothing is GM-free. The Commission draft suggests threshold values for GMOs that do not represent a risk to the environment and consumers, and which can therefore be commercially cultivated in the EU. The registration requirements in Directive 2001/18 have nothing to do with the marketing of conventional seed.
Reproduction seed, which farmers themselves cultivate, is at times much more of a problem. It is not subject to any quality testing requirements whatsoever and does not therefore undergo any tests to detect GMOs. Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf himself is in favour of liberalising these reproduction regulations.
And another thing. The lower the threshold value for the adventitious presence of GMOs is set, the more conventional and organic products will have to be labelled, which is why the Commission, various Member States and a large majority in the European Parliament are calling for a realistic limit value of 1% in the forthcoming GMO regulations.
To close, may I say that working farmers need a fundamental understanding of the simple biologic facts of the adventitious and technically unavoidable presence of type A seed in type B. Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf works as a farmer. There are such things as natural events. There will always be GMOs."@en1
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