ISIS Press Release
05/December/03
Efforts to ensure Europe remains GM-free have
been stepped up.
Lim Li Ching reports on the European Social Forum.
The second European Social Forum, held in and
around Paris from 12-15 November 2003, brought
together some 50 000 from across Europe and beyond to
articulate an alternative vision of the world based on
international cooperation, human development and
social justice.
Different initiatives and strategies to maintain
the pressure for a GM-free Europe were discussed at a
workshop, ‘How to Keep Europe GM-Free?’ Europe’s
regulatory framework on GMOs is now in place, with
stricter legislation on deliberate release into the
environment (Directive 2001/18/EC), GM food and feed
(Regulation 1829/2003) and traceability and labelling
(Regulation 1830/2003); the latter two have to be
applied by April 2004. But there is concern that this
is not enough.
There are outstanding issues of seed purity,
contamination or coexistence, and liability and
redress, which have yet to be addressed
satisfactorily. In the meantime, efforts by local
authorities to establish GM-free zones have met with
difficulties. Upper Austria’s attempt to declare
itself GM-free in September 2003 was rejected by the
European Commission (EC), on grounds that no new
scientific evidence had emerged to support a ban, and
that Upper Austria had failed to prove the existence
of a problem specific to the region that justified
such an approach. The Upper Austrian parliament will
appeal this decision.
Nonetheless, Friends of the Earth is currently
spearheading a campaign on GM-free zones. Activists
are lobbying local authorities to declare their areas
GM-free, using Article 19 of Directive 2001/18/EC,
which allows authorities to specify conditions of
consent including the protection of particular
ecosystems/environments and/or geographical areas.
This implies that such zones can be excluded from GM
marketing consents if a scientific case is made
demonstrating that the GM product in question poses a
particular risk to the area. To date, more than 20
local authorities in the UK have adopted GM-free
policies.
Recently, ten GM-free European regions formed a
network, coordinated by Upper Austria and Tuscany; it
includes Aquitaine, Basque Country, Limousin, Marche,
Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Thrace-Rodopi and Wales.
The network produced a document asserting the right of
regions to forbid GMOs within their territories, which
was signed by the regions’ agriculture ministers. The
need for strong local authorities and national
legislation is evident in such efforts, stressed
Antonio Onarati from Italy.
Velt - the federation of ecological living and
producing – launched its ‘GMO-free communities’
campaign in Belgium last year. It has been urging all
308 Flemish local authorities to declare their
territories GM-free. While the Federal Government has
jurisdiction on this issue, it has assured Velt that
the opinion of local communities who want to stay
GM-free will be taken into account. Thanks to the
campaign, public debates on GM have taken place in
several villages and cities for the first time.
It is crucial that the terms of such public debates
are defined in consultation with civil society. This
is what CCC-OGM – the French Collective for a
Citizens’ Conference – is demanding. CCC-OGM,
consisting of fifteen French NGOs, was created in late
2002 to demand that the French government initiate a
public debate on GM before any political
decision is made, particularly with regard to lifting
the de facto moratorium on GM. It recommends
using citizens’ conferences, the results of which
would be used to stimulate parliamentary debate. The
collective hopes to mobilise European partners to
organise similar debates throughout Europe.
CCC-OGM is producing a ‘dossier of charges’ against
GMOs, which examines scientific, legal, economic and
ethical dimensions of the debate. This complements the
report of the Independent Science Panel (ISP), The
Case for a GM-Free Sustainable World, which is a
complete dossier of evidence on the known hazards and
problems with GM crops, and of the manifold benefits
of sustainable agriculture. The ISP report has been
the basis of the ISP’s call for a ban on environmental
releases of GMOs.
I introduced the ISP report and called for
independent science and research, and funding thereof.
Particularly, we need independent biosafety
research, which looks at the risks associated with
genetic engineering, as many questions remain
unanswered. In the meantime, scientific evidence of
hazards to date has to be taken seriously. There are
also areas of research that are severely under-funded,
such as sustainable alternatives to GM agriculture,
which would include learning from farming communities
and indigenous peoples. Other kinds of western science
(e.g. gene ecology, genome fluidity) that would
greatly inform on biosafety should be supported. Yet
the bulk of research funding is directed to
reductionist technological options such as GM, that’s
overwhelmingly rejected by the citizens of Europe.
In developing countries where research capacity is
limited and pulled in many directions to meet basic
needs, there is pressure to invest in GM. Yet any
inappropriate choice would result in devastating
consequences, economically, socially and ecologically,
as well as for public health. This has already
happened in Argentina, as Jorge Rulli from Grupo
Reflexion Rural testified. Argentina’s experience of
GM crops has been largely negative and is linked to
the neo-liberal economic paradigm adopted by the
country. Hence, the science policies of a nation also
need to be addressed. Technology assessment, which
includes good science as well as environmental,
health, social and economic assessment, should precede
technology transfer.
Keeping Europe GM-free will be no easy task, as
exemplified by the realities in Central-Eastern and
South-Eastern Europe. Iza Kruszewska from Clean
Production Action and the Northern Alliance for
Sustainability, ANPED talked in particular about the
situation in Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia.
Some progress has been made in these countries, with
Slovenia part of an initiative to create a GM-free
transboundary bioregion that includes parts of Austria
and Italy.
Previous attempts by Croatia to ban production of
GMOs and restrict the import of GM food were met with
threats of a WTO complaint from the US government.
Nonetheless, new legislation has recently come into
force requiring authorisation and labelling for all GM
food and feed placed on the market, and banning the
release of GMOs in protected areas and their buffer
zones, and in areas of organic farming and of
importance to ecotourism.
Serbia and Montenegro has a policy of keeping its
agriculture GM-free, with a comprehensive law
regulating the conditions for deliberate release and
placing on the market. However, its potential GM-free
status is threatened by smuggling of GM soybeans,
field trials and US food aid donations to Kosovo.
Contamination in the region is a pressing issue, as
Romania and Bulgaria grow GM crops commercially, and
smuggling of GM seeds allegedly occurs from these two
countries. Furthermore, the chances for successful
GM-free initiatives in pro-US countries - Poland and
Czech Republic - are unfortunately slim, for this is
where the biotech industry has most influence. NGOs
there are valiantly struggling to stop the
commercialisation of GM crops.
NGOs in Albania are also facing challenges,
according to Skelzen Marku from the Centre for Rural
Studies. Twenty-four organisations had sent a letter
to the Albanian Parliament demanding a 5-year
moratorium on GMOs (seeds, food aid and
experimentations), working via the Socialist
Parliamentary Group. The proposal has however been
postponed due to resignations within the Socialist
government. In the meantime, 16 000 tonnes of maize
and soya (for animal feed) arrived in Albania from the
US in October 2003. Demonstrations were held to
protest these aid shipments, which, protesters
suspect, is genetically engineered.
Citizen and consumer action can turn the
tide. Gerard Vuffray from Stop OGM/Uniterre,
Switzerland spoke on the Swiss referendum initiative,
where 120 000 signatures were collected to demand a
5-year moratorium on GM crops. Friends of the Earth’s
‘Bite Back’ campaign urges citizens’ to protest the US
government’s complaint against the EU in the WTO
regarding the EU’s biosafety regulations. The US
complaint, if successful, will take away the right of
Europeans to decide what they can eat.
Euro Coop, a consumers’ group in Brussels, is also
trying to ensure consumers’ right to refuse GMOs. The
new labelling and traceability regulations might be a
good start, but Euro Coop is concerned that lifting
the moratorium without stringent measures on
co-existence, or addressing contamination (especially
in seeds) and liability, would be disastrous. If these
issues are not addressed satisfactorily, consumers
could enforce a ‘commercial moratorium’ (i.e.
boycott).
The lifting of the de facto moratorium in
Europe seems imminent, and groups throughout the
region are thus employing various strategies to ensure
Europe is GM-free, both in name and in practice. It
will be a difficult battle, as there is already
commercial GM plantings in Spain, Romania and
Bulgaria, with numerous field trials in different
countries.
All the more reason for us to step up our efforts -
strategies include calling for the moratorium to
remain until all scientific questions on biosafety are
answered and until a proper public debate is held;
declaring GM-free zones both via local authorities and
lobbying the EU to allow regions and countries to
declare themselves GM-free; getting the public to say
‘no’ to GMOs, including by effecting a ‘commercial
moratorium’; and lobbying for satisfactory and
adequate EU legislation on co-existence, liability and
seed purity.
And if all else fails, there is direct action
advocated by the Green Gloves Pledge in the UK to pull
up GM crops if commercial growing is approved. |