Reuters | November 26, 1999
BRUSSELS - The European Parliament was cited as demanding on Friday that it be given joint decision-making powers with European Union governments on any future legislation on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The assembly's environment committee said the EU's approach to laws regulating GMOs was "piecemeal." It called for rules to be drawn up quickly to cover animal feed containing GMOs and on how to define a food as GMO-free.
With public concern growing in Europe about the safety of gene-modified crops, the parliament it had no role in the agreement last month of new labelling standards for GM foods.
The rules, agreed by EU governments, will force food producers to label their products as containing GMOs if they cannot guarantee that each of the ingredients contains less than one percent GM material.
In a resolution drafted by environment committee chairwoman Caroline Jackson, the parliament called for a review clause to be included in the rules to allow the one percent threshold to be reconsidered within 12 months.
A parliament official was quoted as saying, "We know we're sidelined on this issue, but this is designed to be a political signal that we should have powers of co-decision on all issues relating to GMOs."
EU governments are due to complete reforms to the way the bloc functions by the end of next year to ensure that the decision-making process does not become clogged when new members join early next century.
