AgroPages-EU Council adopts position on the cultivation of GMOs-Agricultural news

The EU Council has adopted its first-reading position on a draft directive granting to member states more flexibility to decide whether or not they wish to cultivate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on their territory.

The adoption follows the political agreement reached in the Environment Council on 12 June. The Italian presidency is expected to start negotiations with the newly elected European Parliament in early autumn 2014.

The aim of the draft directive proposed by the Commission as a response to the request of 13 member states in June 2009, is to provide a sound legal basis in the related EU legal framework in order to allow member states to restrict or prohibit the cultivation, in all or part of their territory, of GMOs that have been authorised or are under authorisation at EU level.

On 3 March 2014, the exchange of views held by the Environment Council confirmed the willingness of member states to re-open discussions on this legislative proposal on the basis of the presidency compromise text. Since then, the Hellenic presidency has convened several meetings of the ad hoc working party on GMOs, which showed that a new revised proposal could gather broad support.

The text agreed by EU council includes in particular the following elements:

-- a non-exhaustive list of possible grounds that can be used by member states to restrict or prohibit the authorisations was introduced, including, notably, environmental reasons, socioeconomic reasons, land use and town planning, agricultural policy objectives and public policy issues etc.;

-- amendments were made in order to establish the set of deadlines and responsibilities governing the decisions relating to the adjustment of the geographical scope of the authorisation, including an additional opting out option based on new objective circumstances;

--The new directive has no impact on the assessment process for GMOs made by the European Food Safety Agency under Directive 2001/18 and Regulation 1829/2003.