By Māra Braslava
Managing Editor
Despite major opposition the European Commission has set out to approve cultivation of genetically modified (GM) maize Pioneer 1507 developed by American chemical companies DuPont and Dow Chemical.
The proposal has been rejected by the European Parliament as well as most EU 
countries in the Council. In January European Parliament with a two-thirds majority passed a resolution opposing the Commission’s intention. Members of the European Parliament asked for a more through risk assessment regarding the crop. Yet, the Commission was not obliged to consider Parliament’s vote because the decision on the Pioneer 1507 (1507) is made under the comitology rules meaning that only the Council could stop it.
In the Council meeting on February 11, the ministers representing the European governments failed to reach a consensus. In the vote 19 out of 28 EU member states were against the proposal while five voted in favor and four abstained. The rejection by 19 countries was not enough to reach the necessary qualified majority and stop the proposal. The abstention of Germany, which has substantial voting weight in the Council, was decisive. Now the decision can be automatically approved by the Commission.
The file on the 1507 maize is nothing new– it was first introduced 13 years ago but the member states failed to reach an agreement. The Commission decided to proceed with the authorization of the GMO crop in November last year after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the decision may not be delayed any longer. The Commission argues that the EU law obliges it to push forward the proposal while critics have pointed out that it could create a new proposal rejecting the crop.
Environmental organizations have alerted Europeans of the potential dangers of growing the 1507. The GM corn is able to protect itself from certain pests by producing a toxin which according to Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FOE), is a serious threat to butterfly and moth populations. Environmentalists also warn that the 1507 produces much stronger toxins than the currently allowed GM maize MON810. In addition, the crop is resistant to a herbicide glufosinate ammonium, which in the EU is considered toxic and allegedly is going to be outlawed after 2017. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has expressed similar concerns.
FOE connect the approval of the 1507 with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that is currently being negotiated and is also associated with concerns of weakened food safety regulations. Mute Schimpf, a campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, has stated that the European agricultural sector is as productive as “the pesticide and GM-dominated approach” of the United States and dabbling with unsafe GMOs is unnecessary. In his view, the Commission is choosing to represent the corporate agribusiness over the consumers and the environment.
Advocates of the law argue that non-GMO producing farmers face unfair competition from countries where GM crops are allowed. Agriculturally important states, Spain and the UK, are the strongest supporters of GMOs and are joined by smaller countries, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden. Other big agricultural producers like Poland and France are firmly against the commercial cultivation of Pioneer 1507 in the EU.
The Commsssion claims that the 1507 has been scientifically proven to be safe. The proponents also claim that the attention given to the regulation is inadequate – in so far there has been little actual use of GM crops by European producers. GM maize is already commercially grown in the EU but only in five countries – Spain, Czech Republic, Portugal and Germany and it constitutes only 1.35% of the total corn cultivation area. Most of the GM maize is not used for direct human consumption, but rather for animal feed and starch production. Foods that contain GM starch must be labelled but the distribution of GMO-fed animal products is not restricted.
This is already the third occasion the Commission is pushing forward a law that legalizes GMO. A type of GM corn develop by Monsanto was authorized in 1998 but an attempt to legalize a GM potato was stopped by the ECJ in December last year. According to Greenpeace, the same would happen with Pioneer 1507 because the Commission has breached the EU law as it has made significant changes in the original proposal without consulting the respective national expert committees.
After the Council’s vote, eleven ministers from twelve EU member states addressed the Commsssion in an open letter, stating that the approval of the Pioneer 1507 will affect citizens’ trust in the EU and might negatively influence the European Parliament elections in May. Hungary’s minister of state for European Union affairs Enikő Győri has stated that the approval of the GM maize “will damage the credibility and legitimacy of the entire European Union and risk contributing to a bumper harvest for EU sceptic parties”.
In light of the strong resistance the Commission will have a hard time pushing through the new regulation without harming the image of the EU. According health Commissioner Tonio Borg, it might seek compromise by allowing countries to ban the crop nationwide as has been the practice before. The Commission is unlikely to give up its intentions and in line with the legislative framework of the EU, it has the ultimate right to decide.
Māra Braslava, Class of 2014, is a Politics and Sociology major from Limbaži, Latvia.
