While the Commission claims that Monsanto's GE maize (MON810)
(1) has been monitored for environmental risks and that it meets
the requirements under current EU legislation, Greenpeace
investigations show that no comprehensive monitoring plan exists.
Greenpeace calls for the EU Member States to take initiatives to
stop the commercialisation of Monsanto's GE maize.
"The first time a GE variety is listed to the Common Catalogue
and thus can be sold to farmers and can potentially be grown in
many parts of Europe, the European Commission is misleading Member
States," says Christoph Then, Greenpeace International GE
campaigner. "How can they claim that Monsanto's GE maize is
monitored sufficiently under current European legislations when
simple investigations reveal that the only monitoring plan the EU
refers to is nothing more than Monsanto's own monitoring from
1995."
Greenpeace obtained email correspondence between a journalist
and Mrs Gminder, the then European Commission Spokeswoman for
Health and Consumer Protection. After repeated request for the
monitoring plan, as required to list a GE variety to the Common
Catalogue, Gminder conceded that the monitoring plan was provided
to the Member States under the old EU Directive - that required a
far less extensive level of monitoring than the current Directive -
claiming that there was an additional update. However, in a
September 2004 press release the Commission explicitly states, that
the monitoring plan provided by Monsanto fulfils all necessary
requirements and was accepted by the Member States. But various
requests to relevant authorities in Germany, Austria and Denmark
revealed that no such updated monitoring plan exists (2).
MON810 GE Maize contains the so-called Bt-toxin (which normally
only occurs in bacteria) that is intended to protect the maize
plants against a specific corn borer. Monsanto's monitoring plan of
1995 only considers the issue of the possible emergence of
resistance to Bt-toxin in European corn borer populations. But a
significant number of scientific studies, published after 1995,
show a broad range of other potentially harmful effects in GE
plants, like accumulation of the toxin in soil and putting pressure
on species like butterflies.
These revelations come as the parties to the World Trade
Organization trade dispute over GMOs (3) are about to meet with
scientific experts in Geneva. At the WTO, the European Commission
has to defend the legal standards of the EU and the precautionary
principle to be applied to GMO policy. "The European Commission
must act in Brussels as it talks in Geneva. Otherwise the European
safety policies will loose credibility. Europe must defend the
environment and the consumers against the interests of
multinationals like Monsanto. As long as the Commission does not
act, Member States should take the lead and stop the
commercialization of GE maize at their own initiative," argues
Daniel Mittler, WTO expert of Greenpeace International.
Current EU legislation allows Member States to impose national
bans on the import and growing of GMOs whenever new scientific
evidence on potential risks occurs. Hungary already took that step
and banned the cultivation of MON810 GE Maize in January. As the EU
is still not capable of setting up sufficient criteria for GMO risk
assessment, rules for coexistence and coherent regulation for
monitoring, Greenpeace calls for a European wide initiative halting
the cultivation of all GE plants.
VVPR info: More background information at http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/reports/?campaign%5fid=3942
Notes: Notes:(1) The European Commission decided to put 17 varieties of GM maize MON810 on the EU Common Catalogue on seeds on 8th September 2004.(2) See backgrounder "Monitoring of genetically engineered crops: European Commission fails to protect EU Member States(3) See backgrounder "The assault on Biosafety - The WTO dispute on GMO's"Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organisation which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force the solutions which are essential to a green and peaceful future.