Divided in Diversity: Reforming The EU’s GMO Regime

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 20-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda GEELHOED

AbstractThis article analyses the recent reform to the EU’s genetically modified organisms (GMO) regime which allows Member States to restrict the cultivation of GMO on their territory for reasons that do not relate to issues of health and safety or the environment. By allowing for national differentiation – although on legally questionable grounds – new Article 26b of Directive 2001/18/EC has been presented as a solution to overcome the impasse in GMO decision-making. However, this article finds that the reform fails to provide a solution for the EU regime’s most pressing problem, namely its disregard for scientific uncertainty and disagreement.

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Monika Szkarłat

The European Union can be described as a particular hybrid integration structure that combines features of a state and intergovernmental organisation. Its institutional framework, legal system and division of competences are examples of a supranational organisation or a transnational decision-making system. The decision-making process is an outcome of network interactions between multiple actors, whose relations are non-hierarchically ordered. Genetically modified organisms (GMO) as an example of modern biotechnology application is a highly polarising subject in the EU, as well as globally. Thus, the policy towards GMO is an exemplification of legal and political hybridity of the EU. The analysis of the EU’s legal and political hybridity will be narrowed down to the GM plants case and methodologically organised around the concept of decision-making analysis that is composed of five categories: decision-making situation, actors, decision-making process, decision, implementation of the decision


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Poli

Member States wishing to cultivate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have always been a minority in the EU. Only eight out of twenty-seven have experienced transgenic agriculture. Throughout the years, the opposition to this form of farming has become a genuinely transnational phenomenon given that many regions of different European countries declared themselves GMO-free. Moreover, Member States such as Austria, Luxembourg, Greece, Poland and, most recently, Hungary officially banned transgenic agriculture within their borders altogether. France and Germany suspended the cultivation of GM maize MON 810, respectively in 2008 and 2009.In addition, the EU has previously authorized only two GM crops: GM maize MON 810 (authorization renewed in 2008) and GM potato EH92-527-1 (2010), known as the ‘Amflora potato.’ The cautious approach towards transgenic farming is also witnessed by the long and contested process of renewal of the permit to cultivate GM maize MON 810 and the issue of the authorization for the Amflora potato.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blanca Salas Ferer

In April 2015, the European Commission (hereinafter, Commission) adopted a package on the authorisation of genetically modified organisms (hereinafter, GMOs) as food and feed in the EU. The package, which derives from the Political Guidelines presented to the European Parliament in July 2014 on the basis of which the current Commission was elected, consists of a Communication (titled Reviewing the decision-making process on genetically modified organisms) and a legislative draft (i.e., Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 as regards the possibility for the Member States to restrict or prohibit the use of genetically modified food and feed on their territory, and hereinafter, the Proposal).


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Poli

The recently enacted Directive 2015/412 is a long waited piece of legislation. This legislation introduces a new provision in Directive 2001/18, Art. 26 b, which gives Member States the regulatory freedom to decide whether genetically modified organisms (“GMOs”) should be cultivated or not in their territory. One month after the publication of this act in the Official Journal of the EU, the Commission issued a Communication in which it illustrates further legislative changes to the legislation on genetically modified food and feed (“GM food and feed”). On the same day, the Commission has tabled a proposal for a Regulation, amending Regulation 1829/2003 (the “proposed reform of GM food and feed”) that envisages the possibility for the Member States to restrict or prohibit the use of GM food and feed on their territory. The proposed act is described as a complement to Directive 2015/412 and is inspired by the same principles.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Poli

The Commission has proposed to legitimise the renationalization of the cultivation of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) accepting the request of a group of Member States who raised concerns at the Environment Council of June 2009 regarding the EU-wide decisions on GMO2 cultivation.


2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrycja Dabrowska

The first directives regulating the use and trade of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were adopted at the Community level in 1990. These acts formed a core of the Community gene technology legal regime and harmonised the authorisation procedures prior to both contained use and deliberate release of genetically modified organisms. Accordingly, no GMO may be placed on the European Union market without obtaining a written consent for it and only after an appropriate environmental risk assessment has been carried out. Under the old Deliberate Release Directive 90/220, 18 GM products were allowed to be placed on the Community market following either the Commission decisions or Member States consent and over 1000 were notified to the Member States authorities for experimental purposes.


Author(s):  
Augustine Nduka Eneanya

Over the past three decades, the relationship between ecology and public policy has changed because of the increasing role of scientific uncertainty in environmental policy making. While earlier policy questions might have been solved simply by looking at the scientific technicalities of the issues, the increased role of scientific uncertainty in environmental policy making requires that we re-examine the methods used in decision-making. Previously, policymakers use scientific data to support their decision-making disciplinary boundaries are less useful because uncertain environmental policy problems span the natural sciences, engineering, economics, politics, and ethics. The chapter serves as a bridge integrating environmental ecosystem, media, and justice into policy for public health and safety. The chapter attempts to demonstrate the linkage between the environmental policy from a holistic perspective with the interaction of air, water, land, and human on public health and safety.


Author(s):  
Augustine Nduka Eneanya

Over the past three decades, the relationship between ecology and public policy has changed because of the increasing role of scientific uncertainty in environmental policy making. While earlier policy questions might have been solved simply by looking at the scientific technicalities of the issues, the increased role of scientific uncertainty in environmental policy making requires that we re-examine the methods used in decision-making. Previously, policymakers use scientific data to support their decision-making disciplinary boundaries are less useful because uncertain environmental policy problems span the natural sciences, engineering, economics, politics, and ethics. The chapter serves as a bridge integrating environmental ecosystem, media, and justice into policy for public health and safety. The chapter attempts to demonstrate the linkage between the environmental policy from a holistic perspective with the interaction of air, water, land, and human on public health and safety.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1347-1372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Dobbs

In a pluralistic society, agreement over complex issues is frequently difficult to achieve. This is amply demonstrated by the question of cultivation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), where scientific uncertainty relating to potential threats to the environment or human health runs parallel with concerns over ethics, freedom of choice, and competing agricultural and economic interests. Conflict centres over the objective of free trade of GMOs and the circumstances in which restrictions may legitimately be imposed to deal with the abovementioned concerns, in particular regarding cultivation.


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