Scottish Green Party

People · Planet · Peace

MEPs 'Vote for Consumers', Say Greens

Wed., July 03, 2002. 00:00.

The Scottish Green Party and European Greens have called today's controversial vote by MEPs on 'the authorisation, traceability and labelling of genetically modified food, feed and organisms' a 'vote for consumers'.

Green MSP Robin Harper said:

The Scottish Green Party and European Greens have called today's controversial vote by MEPs on 'the authorisation, traceability and labelling of genetically modified food, feed and organisms' a 'vote for consumers'.

Green MSP Robin Harper said:

[blockquote] 'This is a victory for consumers in Scotland and millions across the EU who want to be able to chose whether or not to eat genetically modified food and for also farmers who do not want to have to give their livestock GM feed.

'The European parliament has obviously taken the right decision, people must be free to chose what they eat. Now we have to wait and see if governments will listen to the people or to the GM lobby.

'It's significant that that the Parliament supported the proposal by Green MEPs not to tolerate contamination of foodstuffs by illegal GMOs, as opposed to the one percent threshold proposed by the Commission. '

[/blockquote]

NOTES FOR EDITORS

  1. If ratified by the Parliament Commission today's decision would mean:

    1. Traceability and labelling: All GM food and feed products have to be labelled and to be traceable irrespective of whether they contain DNA / protein or not. Thus in the future, products such as sugar and highly refined oils produced from GMOs have to be labelled.

    2. Unauthorised GMOs: Unauthorised GMOs or GM materials may not be present in any food or feed. The Commission proposed a threshold of 1%, which was rejected.

    3. Labelling thresholds: The labelling threshold applies only to GMO derivatives (such as sugar, starch, and tomato paste) accidentally present in conventional food/ feed. It shall be 0.5% maximum. The threshold shall be reviewed as and when science and technology allow. In contrast, the Commission proposed an unspecified threshold level (to be defined) and the threshold proposed by the Commission would apply to live GMOs as well as GM derivatives. The Commission did not foresee a review clause.

    4. GMO producers shall take measures to avoid GM contamination: All amendments by the Green/EFA group were adopted which require GMO producers/ users to take anti-contamination measures. They shall take effective measures to prevent the unintended presence of their products in other conventional or organic products. This is a big step forward in the up coming co-existence debate.

    5. GMO-free label: The amendments calling for a GMO-free label were rejected. Now the onus and the costs shall remain with GMO producers rather than those who do not want to use GMOs.

      6. CONTACT

      Robin Harper 0131 348 5927 or 07957 337 176 Steve Burgess 0131 348 5955 or 07887 682 574

      /Release ends

      Contact the Scottish Greens' press team on 07909 933 074.