Successful GMO petition handover to the Commission
On February 7, environmental, agricultural, and consumer rights organizations gathered in front of the European Parliament in Brussels to officially hand over a petition to the European Commission demanding to keep the new generation of genetically modified organisms ‘regulated and labelled’. The petition ran from April to November 2022 and received 420.000 signatures.
A coalition of 50+ organisations successfully ran the petition in 17 EU member states. Some of our members were also involved in this initiative and have translated these petitions into their national contexts. The German organic umbrella organisation BÖLW called the petition Nicht hinter unserem Rücken – Kein Freifahrtschein für neue Gentechnik in unserem Essen. Austria’s organic umbrella organisation Bio Austria lead a petition called Keine neue Gentechnik durch die Hintertür. Clara Behr, Head of Policy and Public Relations the Biodynamic Federation Demeter International, a member of IFOAM Organics Europe, successfully spearheaded the organization of the petition over the course of the past year. Clara Behr says: “Excluding new GMOs would prevent farmers, food producers, retailers, and citizens from opting for GM-free choices. We have the right to decide what we eat and grow in our fields!”
This petition comes at a crucial time for voicing citizens’ concerns on the topic of new GMOs and so called ‘New Genomic Techniques’ (NGTs). The European Commission aims to present their new legislative proposal on NGTs in a package together with the revision of the Seed legislation on the June 7 2023 already. The new proposal might take away key pillars of GM-free conventional, and organic food production, like traceability and labelling.
Klaus Berend and Irene Sacristán Sánchez, head of Pesticides and biocides and head of unit for Biotechnology in the Directorate General Health and Food Safety of the European Commission (DG SANTE), respectively, received the petition. Several Members of European Parliament also joined the handover. Among them were Green/EFA Members of the EU Parliament (MEPs) Thomas Waitz and Martin Häusling, as well as Eric Andrieu from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and Anja Hazekamp from the Left Party (GUE/NGL), who all gave short statements in support of the petition and continued regulation of new GMOs. One focal point among their contributions was the question on who NGTs would actually benefit – namely the seed and chemical, intensive agribusinesses, rather than farmers, citizens, and the environment. Further, the MEPs cautioned that NGTs have misleading sustainability claims and that these technologies cannot replace proven agroecological practices such as organic farming.
Nina Holland, researcher at CEO added: “A few big chemical and seed corporations are pushing the EU to allow new GMOs onto the market unchecked. These companies have been lobbying the European Commission for years to exclude new GMOs from the EU-regulation, making unsubstantiated claims on the supposed benefits for sustainability. But as they also hold patents on the seeds engineered with these techniques, their true motivation remains to increase their profits.”
