NOAH bifalder beslutning om forlænget GMO-pause i EU


15. februar 2001

NOAH og Friends of the Earth i Europa [1] bifalder beslutningen om en forlængelse af EUs tænkepause for GMO'er indtil nye regler for sporbarhed og miljøansvar er på plads. Bag beslutningen står seks EU-lande, deriblandt Danmark og Frankrig[2].

NOAH har tidligere gjort opmærksom på, at reglerne i det nye gen-direktiv (som onsdag blev vedtaget af Europaparlamentet) er utilstrækkelige. Der mangler bl.a. regler om mærkning og erstatningsansvar. Gen-pausen bør derfor ikke ophæves sålænge der er uenighed herom.

"Hvis de seks lande holder deres løfte om at forlænge moratoriet indtil lovgivning om sporbarhed af GMO'er og miljøansvar er på plads, vil vi ikke komme til at se nye GMO-tilladelser indenfor op til to år", siger miljøkemiker Sofie Krogh Andersen og fortsætter "det er godt at se, at Danmark tør tage miljøet alvorligt til trods for industriens store pres."

Se også pressemeddelelse 14. februar 2001



Noter:

[1] Friends of the Earth er verdens største sammenslutning af miljøorganisationer med 68 medlemslande, heraf 30 i Europa. Kun én organisation fra hvert land kan være medlem. I Danmark er det Miljøbevægelsen NOAH.


[2] Nedenfor er deklarationen om forlængelse af gen-pausen underskrevet d. 15. februar 2001 af miljøministrene fra Frankrig, Danmark, Østrig, Italien, Luxembourg og Grækenland:

STATEMENT BY FRANCE - AMENDMENT OF DIRECTIVE 90/220/EEC

STATEMENT BY THE DANISH, AUSTRIAN, ITALIAN, GREEK, LUXEMBOURG AND FRENCH DELEGATIONS ON THE OCCASION OF THE THIRD READING VOTE BY THE COUNCIL

Considering the principles of prevention and precaution,

The governments of the following Member States (Denmark, Austria, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg and France)

• take note of the agreement concluded between the Council and the European Parliament concerning the proposal for the amendment of Directive 90/220/EEC;
  
  
• reaffirm the necessity, on one hand, to put in place a more rigorous, more transparent and more complete framework for the assessment and management of risks (taking into account the specificity of European ecosystems), for the monitoring, traceability and labelling of the GMOs and, on the other hand, to generally restore public confidence and that of operators;
  
  
• note that the provisions of the Directive 90/220/EEC as amended improve, in a significant but only partial way, the existing system, and underline the essential improvements provided in the fields of transparency, public access to information, biological monitoring of the territory, progressive eradication of resistance markers to antibiotics, legal safety, and ratification of the Cartagena protocol;
  
  
• request the Commission to comply with its commitment soon to present thorough legislative proposals for traceability and labelling in the field of the GMO?s, for environmental liability and for the ratification of the Cartagena protocol.

Consequently, the abovementioned delegations

• reaffirm their will, in the framework of the power which has been vested in them, that new authorizations for bringing under cultivation and for the placing of GMO's on the market are suspended until effective arrangements are adopted for the thorough traceability of GMO's enabling reliable labelling of all GMO-derived products to be guaranteed.
  
  
• request the Commission to go forward quickly in establishing a system for environmental liability so as to complete the regulatory framework necessary for a development in the field of biotechnologies, as in other environmental fields.