Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-23-Speech-3-398"
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"en.20080423.25.3-398"2
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"Madam President, I listened very carefully to the various comments that the honourable Members have made.
Lastly I want to reply to a comment that was made by a speaker that in our risk management we take into account economic grounds only. I would say that, for us, the primary factor is the safety to human and animal health and the environment as well.
Having said that, I would like to say that the Commission remains open to discuss possible suggestions in this field, but only on the precondition that any proposed solution respect the fundamental aim of guaranteeing the safety of the products placed on the EU market.
We do recognise in the Commission that asynchronous approvals of GMOs can represent a problem for the availability and cost of feed imports. Although the rising costs in this sector are the result of different, complex and sometimes much wider factors, all these factors have been taken into consideration in the study that was made by DG AGRI.
The Commission’s efforts are targeted at addressing some of the key factors behind this issue, both at internal level, though the authorisation of new GMOs in the full respect of the EU legislative framework, and at international level, through the discussions with our major trading partners.
Several speakers have posed the question whether the Commission would be prepared to move from zero tolerance to something higher. I must remind you that to do so we need codecision both from Parliament and the Council, and we need to have the support of Member States. You know what the stance of the Member States has been in the various standing committees, where we rarely, as far as I know never, managed to get a qualified majority.
I would like to say that to impose restrictions over imported animal products which are the product of animals fed with GMOs would probably fail to comply with our international commitments.
Lastly I want to say a few words about the delays in the authorisation process, which was mentioned by a number of speakers. There is an ongoing discussion between the Commission and the EFSA to verify the possibility of efficiency gains in the authorisation procedure without any compromise on the quality of the scientific assessment.
One of the elements which have been highlighted is the need to better communicate to applicants the requirements for the authorisation in order to improve, from the start, the quality of their dossiers.
Furthermore, and as a result of this discussion, the Authority has taken the commitment to carry out the preliminary validity check within six weeks from the submission of the application, thus significantly reducing the timeline for the authorisation procedure.
It is also important to note that the approval process could be significantly shortened if the Commission had greater support from Member States in the comitology process for the authorisation of GMOs."@en1
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