Articles

SPEECH - 8 June 2015

Commissioner Andriukaitis addressing extraordinary meeting of the parliament's committee on the environment, public health and food safety on GMO Proposal

Chairman, Honourable Members,

Thank you for inviting me to this extraordinary meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food safety to discuss the Commission proposal to amend the GM food and feed Regulation.

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Therefore I would like to ask everyone to play fair here. The Commission will still be in charge as regards GM authorisations, which would continue to be granted at European level. However Member States who have identified very serious legitimate concerns about the use of GMOs will have the possibility to present these concerns and to restrict the use of GMOs on their territory.

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First of all, the Member States could not base their restrictions or bans on grounds which conflict with the element considered by EFSA during the risk assessment. They could only use “compelling grounds” unrelated to science.

"Other legitimate factors” is a notion already present in the legislation. The Commission can use these in the context of the decision of authorisation, but in practice, due to the divergent views of Member States, the Commission has never been in a position to identify legitimate factors valid at EU-level which could justify refusing an authorisation.

The proposal seeks to allow Member States to use these "compelling grounds", based on their own national situation. This is in line with the subsidiarity approach.

Let me also stress that the use of compelling grounds by the Member States is compatible with the single market rules. Indeed, the Treaty foresees the possibility to derogate to the Single Market for “overriding reasons of public interest”.

The movement of GM food and feed would be preserved. Member States could not ban the free circulation and import – only the use. Member States would not be allowed to ban food and feed where GMOs are present at trace level.

Other Member States and the Commission would have the possibility to comment on the draft opt out measures.

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