20-6-2007
"Toelatingsprocedure GGO's versnellen en nultolerantie afschaffen"
Europarlementariër Jan Mulder heeft vandaag schriftelijke vragen
gesteld aan de Europese Commissie over de Europese toelatingsprocedure
voor GGO's (Genetisch Gemodificeerde Organismen) en de nultolerantie
die momenteel nog geldt wat betreft GGO's die de procedure nog niet
hebben doorlopen.
Door de trage toelatingsprocedures en de huidige nultolerantie worden
steeds vaker vrachtschepen met grondstoffen voor diervoeders
teruggestuurd, omdat ze zeer lichte contaminaties met, in Europa nog
niet toegelaten GGO's bevatten.
Omdat de toelatingsprocedures in de rest van de wereld veel sneller
verlopen, wordt het ook steeds moeilijker voor importeurs om producten
te vinden die deze contaminaties niet vertonen. Mulder: "De trage
toelatingsprocedure voor GGO's en de nultolerantie zorgen ervoor dat
in Europa de diervoerprijzen stijgen. Dit is slecht voor de
concurrentiepositie van onze veehouderij en de hele agribusiness die
daarom omheen draait ."
Hieronder vindt u de schriftelijke vragen die Jan Mulder samen met een
aantal Europese collega's indiende.
---
--------------------------------
Schriftelijke vragen Jan Mulder, Heinz Kindermann, Luis Manuel
Capoulas Santos, Neil Parish and Lutz Goepel aan de Europese
Commissie:
Regulation (EC) 1829(2003) was adopted to regulate the placing on the
market of genetically modified crops. The European Union is currently
facing a rising number of incidents related to the adventitious
presence of traces of genetically modified crops that are not yet
authorised in the EU, but have received approval in major trading
partners of the EU. Although importers and stakeholders are acting
with due diligence to avoid such incidents, they are likely to recur
due to the introduction of new events in the exporting countries and
the application of a zero tolerance regime for the presence of
unauthorised GMOs in imports to the EU. This worsening situation is
likely to result in ever higher feeding stuff prices in the EU.
1. Given the high import dependency of the EU for protein rich feeding
stuffs (e.g. soybean meal, corn gluten feed), how would the European
Commission assess the consequences of asynchronous approvals and the
zero tolerance policy on the competitiveness of EU livestock
production in the short and in the long run?
2. Is the Commission of the opinion that the current approval
procedure for GMOs in the EU takes too long? Is the Commission of the
opinion that the situation, in which the EU lags far behind with its
approvals compared with the rest of the world, is highly undesirable?
3. Is the Commission planning to come forward with specific measures,
or proposals for measures, that would speed up the current approval
procedure? If so, could the Commission specify what these measures or
proposals for measures will look like?
4. Is the Commission of the opinion that instead of the current zero
tolerance regime, a threshold value should be applied for the
adventitious presence of unauthorised GMOs that have already obtained
a positive assessment from the EFSA or that have been authorised in
third countries with a safety assessment equivalent to the one
required for EU authorisation?
5. Does the Commission expect the current situation, if left
unchanged, to result in trade disputes with affected countries? If so,
how does the Commission intend to avoid trade disputes on the issues
raised?
VVD