Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-07-01-Speech-2-111"
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"en.20030701.5.2-111"2
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"Madam President, it is high time that the European Union opened up more to biotechnologies and genetic engineering in the food sector as well. Since the 1980s, plant-transgenesis technology has been making progress everywhere except in Europe. Last year, about 60 million hectares outside Europe were growing genetically improved crops. The European Union is having difficulty in protecting about 10 000 hectares for the experimental cultivation of certain transgenic plants.
Allow me to quote the French
which says, ‘Transgenic varieties have been rejected in Europe, although there has never been a health problem regarding consumers or damage to the environment’. The
goes on to explain that almost all the plants cultivated today are the result of thousands of years of genetic selection from wild plants. Gene exchanges between varieties or species have very often led to profound changes in the morphology of the original wild plant. Many species have been domesticated by man by the addition of different genomes; examples of this include tobacco, wheat and rape.
Ever since human beings have tilled the soil, they have been practising genetic engineering without knowing it. While cross-breeding and selective breeding carried out on a hit-and-miss basis by human hands have been accepted, more precisely targeted interventions involving the production of genes are regarded as the work of the devil. As far as the
is concerned, transgenic foods are not intrinsically any more dangerous than other foods, and this has been recognised by the Codex Alimentarius. Why, then, is there all this fuss, all these vague fears about GMOs? The dogma of the precautionary principle is leading to precautions without any scientific principles at all.
I shall be voting in favour of the compromise negotiated with the Council, even though the compromise is too timid. I urge the Commission to do away with the illegal moratorium on GMOs and to ensure that Europe does not miss out in the biotechnology revolution. Is it necessary, Madam President, to remind the House that, at the present time, 95% of people with a doctorate in biology are working on the American continent? That is a disgrace for Europe!"@en1
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"Académie des Sciences"1
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