| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Jez" |
| Date: |
05 Jun 2005 02:33:31 PM |
| Object: |
OT: Mandelson wants to fast-track GM |
Mandelson wants to fast-track GM
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=644299
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
05 June 2005
Peter Mandelson is pressing for new GM foods and crops to be eaten and
planted across Europe, even though governments cannot agree on whether to
introduce them, top officials from the European Commission have told The
Independent on Sunday.
They say that the controversial trade commissioner's department wants to
speed up their use, despite widespread public opposition, and is insisting
on their being imposed by the Commission on unwilling governments.
The Commission lifted a six-year moratorium on approving new modified foods
and crops last year, and biotech firms have been queuing up to have their
products officially cleared for use across the Continent.
Two types of GM maize have already been passed for human and livestock
consumption over the past year, and more than 30 GM versions of maize,
rice, potatoes, sugar beet, soya beans and other foods and crops are
awaiting approval.
They are being nodded through by the Commission, over the heads of
governments, because ministers cannot agree on whether to approve them.
European countries are almost equally split into pro-GM and anti-GM camps,
and every time a new product comes before ministers for clearance they are
deadlocked. It then passes to the Commission itself for approval, in a
procedure denounced by campaigners as "profoundly undemocratic".
Now the Commission's Health and Environment directorates are pressing for
the system to be changed to give governments greater control.
Markos Kyprianou, the health and consumer protection commissioner, has also
come out against it, and Hervé Martin, head of the biotechnology and
pesticides unit in the EU Environment Directorate, says that it is "not
sustainable to continue the system". He believes commissioners and
governments should meet "before the summer" to work out a better one.
But, Mr Martin adds, the Trade Directorate wants to speed up the approval
of more modified crops and products. He says it is insisting on sticking
with the present arrangements, even if this means overriding the wishes of
some governments.
Michael Meacher, the former UK environment minister, said yesterday:
"Having a group of unelected bureaucrats deciding what food should be eaten
is fundamentally undemocratic. It is intolerable that they can ride it
through roughshod over the objections of member states.
"This is the very kind of thing that the peoples of France and the
Netherlands were objecting to in their referendums last week."
Mr Mandelson's office failed to take up the opportunity to comment.
--
Jez, MBA.,
Country Dancing and Advanced Astrology, UBS.
'Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable notion
that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often led to
accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what that
reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be skeptical of
someone else's description of reality.'-
Howard Zinn
.
|
|
| User: "Katt" |
|
| Title: Re: Mandelson wants to fast-track GM |
05 Jun 2005 03:33:54 PM |
|
|
"Jez" <iced_spear@NODAMNSPAMdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:Xns966CD12553B43hellward@216.196.109.145...
Mandelson wants to fast-track GM
They say that the controversial trade commissioner's department wants to
speed up their use, despite widespread public opposition, and is insisting
on their being imposed by the Commission on unwilling governments.
That old EU 'democratic deficit' again...
The Commission lifted a six-year moratorium on approving new modified
foods
and crops last year,
That old EU 'democratic deficit' again...
They are being nodded through by the Commission, over the heads of
governments, because ministers cannot agree on whether to approve them.
That old EU 'democratic deficit' again...
Katt.
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
