EU Enlargement and Genetically Modified Organisms: Chasing a Moving Target The Implications of EU Accession for Eastern European Agriculture and Food Policy

A report prepared for ANPED, The Northern Alliance for Sustainability
by Thomas Schweiger
November 2000

The research and publication of this report was made possible by the financial support of the Jenifer Altman Foundation, the CS Fund and the Austrian Ökobüro's EU-Enlargement Project "Twinning the NGOs"

Ecosouthwest

The Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED)

ANPED is a network of non-government organisations (NGOs) based in the Northern hemisphere. We strive to change unsustainable consumption and production patterns with an emphasis on the North. ANPED's role is to build sustainable societies by empowering grassroots organisations through sharing information and skills, common campaigns, publications and participation in international governmental conferences. ANPED networks groups working on Genetic Engineering, Local Agenda 21, Corporate Accountability, Extended Producer Responsibility and Clean Production. ANPED is a democratic network of NGOs and voluntary organisations, with most of its members in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Newly Independent States (NIS). Membership is open to any such organisation sharing our aims.

ANPED's work on Genetic Engineering of Food and Agriculture in CEE and NIS started in 1996. In May 1998, ANPED organised the first skillshare on GMOs and Agriculture for NGOs from CEE and NIS, in Budapest, Hungary. Since late 1999, ANPED has been mapping the level of commercialisation of GMOs and regulatory oversight of GMOs in specific CEE countries. To date, three report have been published:

• ANPED-Green Action report: "Genetically Engineered Food and Crops in Croatia: A Threat to Sustainable Agriculture", published in Zagreb, February 2000
• ANPED-EcoSouthWest report: “Bulgaria: The European Corporate Playground for Genetically Engineered Food and Agriculture”, published in Sofia, May 2000
• ANPED-MURE report: "What’s for dinner Mum? Genetically Engineered Food and Crops in Poland", published in Warsaw, May 2000

ANPED's GMO programme now includes groups from 8 countries in the region working together to raise public awareness of genetically engineered food in their countries.

ANPED's core activities are funded by the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) and the EU DG Environment

For more information: anped@anped.antenna.nl or visit our website: www.anped.org

CONTENTS

Abstract

Introduction

Part 1: The European Union

1.1. Essentials about the EU

Part 2: The EU’s GMO Policy

2.1. General GMO policy

2.2. Specific EU legislation on GMOs

Part 3: What does EU Accession mean for GMO policy in CEE?

3.1. Chasing Moving Targets

Part 4: Recommendations

4.1. Recommendations to the EU

4.2. Recommendations to CEE Accession Candidates

4.3. Recommendations to NGOs in CEE Accession countries

Annexes

Annex A: Commission press release about the EU's De facto Moratorium on GMOs

Annex B: GMOs approved for commercialisation in the EU

Abstract

This report provides an overview of the main laws of the European Union (EU) pertaining to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), used in food and agriculture, to which the Accession countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) will need to harmonise their domestic laws.

The fast speed of commercialisation of genetically modified seeds and food and the unforeseen consumer rejection of GM food in the EU, has resulted in continuous revisions of existing EU laws and a plethora of proposed and possible new legislation. Despite the volatility of EU policy on GMOs, one thing is clear: the EU is moving towards more transparent and increasingly restrictive laws regulating GMOs.

Given that EU laws on GMOs lack any provisions for EU enlargement, this report attempts to open this debate, by asking the question: What are the implications of EU enlargement on agriculture and food policy in Accession countries? Chapter 3 examines the difficulties for Accession countries in attempting to harmonise their legislation with the EU's moving targets. It explores the legal status of GMOs after Accession, using different scenarios e.g. GMOs approved or not approved in the EU against GMOs not approved in CEE, or approved using EU-compatible on non-EU-compatible legislation. The legal status of specific GMOs after accession will have profound implications on whether they can be marketed throughout the new EU, given the constraints of maintaining the internal market. This could have severe consequences for the functioning of the EU's single market and for Eastern European agriculture.

From the findings of this report, we recommend that the EU should advise applicant countries to refrain from commercially releasing GMOs into the environment, prior to accession. In the case of GMOs, which already have EU approval, applicant countries should be promised automatic "Article 16 procedures" when they accede. For GMOs with no EU approval, accession countries should be urged to refrain from approving any non-EU-approved GM products.

Given the de facto moratorium on new approvals of GMOs and the uncertain status of the 18 GMOs already approved, we urge Accession countries to adopt the same policies and legislation as the EU. This means refraining from authorising any commercial releases of GMOs prior to accession and preventing imports of GM agricultural commodities and food. Exports of GMOs or their products from CEE to the EU prior to accession are likely to be rejected, either due to their illegal status in the EU or because of consumer rejection.

Imports of agricultural commodities from GM crop-growing countries, such as U.S. and Canada, might be legal in some CEE countries prior to accession, but illegal within the EU's common market. On accession, these GM products will need to be taken off the market at high cost. For this reason, Accession countries need to monitor imports of agricultural commodities, especially from GM crop-growing countries and build institutional and technical capacity to identify GMO contamination of crops, food and seeds being imported. This will enable GM commodities that have no EU approval to be rejected; for those with EU approval, it will enable appropriate labelling to be enforced.

The report ends with recommendations to NGOs in CEE Accession countries to highlight releases of GMOs that may be taking place without proper legislation and monitoring and to warn about the implications of these releases for EU accession. Most importantly, NGOs must call for clear rules to be introduced into the accession treaties establishing procedures on how to deal with GMOs after accession. Until such time that these rules are in place, no GMO should be authorised for commercialisation in any pre-accession country.

Introduction

The development of agricultural biotechnology and the commercialisation of its products are moving ahead at an unprecedented speed. The result is that government policy and legislation lags behind every new development. In the case of the EU, the introduction of GM foods has largely failed due to consumer opposition and the consequent response of the market. Earlier food scandals had already sensitised consumers and food producers to issues of food safety. Most large European food producers and retailers have eliminated GM ingredients in their foods. As a reaction to the market rejection of GM foods, the EU and Member States are becoming increasing restrictive in their policies on GM food and agriculture. Existing legislation is being revised and new regulations are being proposed to address legal gaps on GM animal feed and GM seeds.

In the EU accession countries of CEE, the situation is even more chaotic than in the EU, with major policy vacuums and legislative gaps. The situation is also very diverse between countries in the region, with Hungary having a relatively well-controlled and transparent regulatory system, while in some second-round accession countries, such as Bulgaria, there is no government control on releases of GMOs.

What is the situation with GMOs in some Accession countries?

• The fox is guarding the hen house: in Poland, Bulgaria and Croatia, regulatory oversight of releases of GMOs is undertaken by the same scientists that are undertaking genetic experiments.
• Commercial cultivation of GM maize in Bulgaria: Monsanto's Roundup Ready maize and 4 GM varieties of Pioneer's maize were advertised in the 2000 Seed Catalogues and Seed Offers for 2000, and available to Bulgarian farmers from local seed distributors.
• No information to assess adequacy of biosafety measures for field trials: In Poland, in 1999, there were field trials of 12 varieties of GM crops, including spring and winter oilseed rape and sugar and fodder beet. Recent research shows that pollen from male-sterile oilseed rape was pollinating 5% of flower buds up to 4000 metres away. Since, Polish biosafety measures for field trials require an the isolation distance of just 400m for rape, the harvests of neighbouring farmers are highly likely to be contaminated by GM pollen - potentially creating GM varieties of rape that have not been approved in the EU. In 2000, 9 permits were granted for field trials of 6 varieties of herbicide tolerant (HT) sugar beet, one HT variety of maize and 2 varieties of GM potatoes.
• The legal status of the Bulgarian Council approving releases of GMOs is being challenged in court. The status of the Council on Safe Use of GM Higher Plants is poorly defined in Bulgarian legislation, since it is based on a 1996 Regulation, introduced on the basis of a 1958 Seed Act. On the one hand, this Council seems to be a separate authority, whose responsibility includes the issuing of permits for releasing GMOs, but on the other hand, it is not listed as a separate agency within the government. All members of the Council are sworn to administrative secrecy. In May, three Bulgarian NGOs filed court papers challenging the legal status of the Council.
• GM Foods on the Market. There is no awareness among officials of imports of agricultural commodities that could be contaminated with GMOs; nor, is there any institutional capacity to monitor the GM-contamination of imported crops or foods on the market. In Poland, which recently introduced a regulation requiring the approval of GM foods and their labelling, even the officials admit that it is not enforced. A survey of 11 food products available in Czech supermarkets, undertaken by Greenpeace in June 2000, revealed Roundup Ready soybeans in soymeat produced by the Czech Pragosoja.
• Tobacco companies threaten to reject Bulgarian tobacco. Already in 1991, transgenic tobacco plants were the first GMOs released in the Balkan region. In 1997, Prof. Atanas Atanssov, the head of the Institute of Genetic Engineering in Kostinbrod and Executive Secretary of the Council giving approvals for releases of GMOs, was boasting to the media that GM tobacco would be commercialised in 1998. This story was picked up by Reuters and reached the major buyers of Bulgarian tobacco: Phillip Morris, British-Amercian Tobacco and Reemtsma, who reacted by threatening to stop buying Bulgarian tobacco if the country went ahead with commercialisation.

The absence of information about national releases of genetically modified organisms in some CEE countries and thus the lack of awareness among the public and even government officials, means that legislation and enforcement are seriously lagging behind that in the EU. Moreover, the legislative and enforcement deficits are being exploited by transnational GM seed and food producers, who are unable to sell their products on the EU market.

This report was commissioned by ANPED to examine what impacts accession of CEE countries to the EU will have on GMO products. In Chapters 1 and 2 the report aims to explain how the EU works and what policies it follows in the area of agricultural biotechnology; Chapter 3 investigates the possible implications of the current permissive practices on GMOs in some CEE countries once they become members of the EU. The report attempts to answer the questions:

• How does the principle of the single market work in this field once new countries join?
• What might be the consequences for CEE of releasing GMOs, which have not been approved under EU laws? For example, in 2000 Bulgarian farmers sowed four varieties of Pioneer's GM maize, none of which have been approved for commercialisation in the EU. What will happen to these GM crops once Bulgaria joins the EU?

As far as the author and ANPED are aware, these questions have never been examined in detail before. But, at least awareness seems to be growing within the Commission that certain problems do exist. During a European Parliamentary session held 24 October 2000, the Commission acknowledged that there are problems in CEE countries concerning the release of EU-unapproved GMOs and that they have insufficient information about what is going on.

This report focuses solely on legislative issues related to accession scenarios in agricultural biotechnology, and does not examine legislation related to other applications of GMOs, e.g. in pharmaceutical production or health care.

The findings are based on a review of existing EU legislation, interviews with EU officials, experts in national competent authorities, Members of the European Parliament and lawyers working on these issues.

EU legislation on GMOs, first formulated in the late 1980s, was not designed with accession in mind. In fact, the EU legislative framework has even proved to be unworkable within the EU for which it was designed. However, from the provisions enshrined in the legislation, especially the need for environmental risk assessments to be undertaken for each and every GMO under the EU’s commitology procedures, certain scenarios can be deduced for the moment of accession. It must be noted that exact rules under which CEE countries will accede have yet to be established and the issue of GMO approvals remains for the most part an open question. The opinions expressed in Chapter 3 of this report are not legal fact, but an interpretation of legislation that lacks any provisions for enlargement of the EU.

This report is aimed at NGOs and decision-makers in Central and Eastern European Accession countries, as well as officials and politicians in Brussels. We hope the recommendations in this report help inform your policies and legislative efforts, in this complex and fast-changing field.