Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-17-Speech-3-330"
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"en.20031217.12.3-330"2
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"Mr President, today's debate clearly shows how the pressure exerted by Bush last summer is being fleshed out. Not only for the movement of genetically modified organisms, but also for their free cultivation in the European Union. I should like to state from the outset our categorical opposition to the cultivation of genetically modified products and to point out for the umpteenth time the hypocrisy of the Commission which, at a time when it is implementing the reform of the CAP, supposedly with the basic principle of improving the quality of agricultural produce in order to guarantee healthy and safe food, environmental protection etc., it is, on the other hand, promoting the cultivation of modified products. The most typical example of its hypocrisy is tobacco for which, on the pretext of protecting public health and sustainable development, subsidies are being slashed in a bid to abolish the crop definitively.
Recently, Mr Michael Meacher, the minister for the environment in the first Blair government, made a statement, which was published in the British newspaper
in which he said he could not see how the Blair government could responsibly issue licences for modified crops. All the evidence from research has proven negative and this position on the part of Mr Meacher is particularly significant in that in 1999 – while he was minister – he started up extensive trial crops of genetically modified plants. Of the 210 fields cultivated, half were modified and half were conventional. The results of the research are particularly revelatory of the possible risks to the environment and consumer health. Even the basic argument of the multinational companies which produce genetically modified seed, mainly in the USA, has proven to be trite. During the course of the trials, which lasted several years, not only was there no reduction in the need for insecticides, but also the special insecticides required for the genetically modified crops proved to be more harmful than those required for conventional crops.
Research has shown that modified rape, maize and sugar beet plants damage the flora and fauna far more than conventional crops. In addition, the Nobel prizewinner Professor Sherwood Rowland, has typically remarked that, as soon as modified organisms are released into the environment and it is ascertained that they are damaging the environment, it is impossible to stop their harmful effect. Modified organisms will continue, constantly multiplying, to wreak havoc as weapons of mass environmental destruction.
The objective of the report by the European Parliament is essentially to get the idea across that genetically modified organisms can coexist with conventional and ecological products, raising certain questions concerning the preconditions and arrangements for coexistence, while it knows full well that numerous studies point out that it is exceptionally difficult, impossible if you like, to protect against contamination when these crops coexist. As for hypocritically citing the 'polluter pays' principle, I do not understand, on the one hand, what calculations can be used to evaluate either the possible environmental cost and the damage to consumer health while I fear, on the other hand, that they will ultimately heap the blame indirectly, if not clearly, on the producers themselves.
Finally, Mr President, the European Parliament has just one obligation
European farmers, consumers and the environment – to say a categorical and overall ‘no’ to the cultivation of modified crops. Only thus could it fulfil its role, by allowing pressure from the USA, the objective of which is to serve the interests of its multinationals, so that they can amass profits at the expense of the peoples' health and the environment, to fall on stony ground."@en1
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