[1]
PRESS RELEASE
EUROPEAN COMMISSION BOWING TO INDUSTRY LOBBY CAMPAIGN ON NEW GMOS
_Brussels, 29 April 2021_
The study released today by the European Commission on products from new GM
techniques like CRISPR-Cas shows that the institution has been lending its
ears almost entirely to the biotech industry.
The study suggests that the current EU GMO rules may not be “fit for
purpose” for some new GM applications. In its letter to the Portuguese
Presidency, the European Commission says that it “intends to initiate a
policy action" on plants derived from new techniques. This is a clear first
step to the deregulation of these techniques, which would mean no safety
checks for the environment or public health, nor consumer labelling.
This outcome is clearly a result from the decade-long lobby campaign by the
GM industry and developers calling for deregulation of GMOs and in
particular the new techniques.
Nina Holland, researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory said: “DG SANTE
has clearly listened more to the biotech lobby than to anyone else. Its
study on new GMOs is yet another example of the corporate capture of EU
decision-making. This started right from the Commission's extremely biased
stakeholder consultation that fed into this study, favouring industry
voices.”
The Commission is buying into the biotech lobbyists' claims of benefits
that they say new GMOs will have for sustainable agriculture. However, no
application has yet been made for a new GMO that presents a credible
solution to any of the pressing problems faced by agriculture today.
Instead, the first GMO made using CRISPR-Cas for which an authorization
demand has been made, is a maize that is tolerant to the pesticide
glufosinate.(1) Herbicide-tolerant crops represent one of the most
unsustainable production models that the European Green Deal was supposed
to end.
Nina Holland: “From legal trickery to devising slick communication
campaigns, from presenting itself as the “voice of science” based on
misleading information to behind-closed-doors meetings with hand-picked
officials from EU member states, the biotech industry has used every tool
from its toolbox to convince the EU institutions of the ‘need’ for
deregulation. But this attempt to deregulate new GM techniques means a
threat to the environment, public health and consumer choice and therefore
contradicts the European Green Deal objectives”.
CEO recently exposed the latest tactics used by the biotech industry and
researchers in its report “Derailing EU rules on new GMOs - CRISPR-Files
expose lobbying tactics to deregulate new GMOs”.(2)
BACKGROUND:
With the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy, the Von der
Leyen Commission has committed to a fundamental shift away from industrial
agriculture as we know it today. With a 50 per cent pesticide reduction
target, and a 25 per cent organic agriculture target by 2030, business as
usual is no longer an option. This creates an existential crisis for those
corporations that are dominant both in the pesticide and in the commercial
seed market, notably Bayer, BASF, Corteva (DowDupont) and Syngenta
(ChemChina). These corporations are set to lose a large share of their
profits from selling pesticides, and are therefore looking for a new
business model: increase profits from the seed business. To have new GMO
seeds without regulatory oversight, but still patented, would surely serve
that aim.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Nina Holland: n...@corporateeurope.org
Tel: +32 466 294420
Hans van Scharen: h...@corporateeurope.org
NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. See for more detail:
https://crm.corporateeurope.org/civicrm/mailing/url?u=5274&qid=932200
2. See CEO's report:
https://crm.corporateeurope.org/civicrm/mailing/url?u=5275&qid=932200
Corporate Europe Observatory,
https://crm.corporateeurope.org/civicrm/mailing/url?u=5269&qid=932200 [2]
Rue d'Édimbourg 26
1050 Brussels
Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)2 893 0930, e-mail: c...@corporateeurope.org
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