The interplay between societal concerns and the regulatory frame on GM crops in the European Union

Abstract

Recapitulating how genetic modification technology and its agro-food products aroused strong societal opposition in the European Union, this paper demonstrates how this opposition contributed to shape the European regulatory frame on GM crops. More specifically, it describes how this opposition contributed to a de facto moratorium on the commercialization of new GM crop events in the end of the nineties. From this period onwards, the regulatory frame has been continuously revised in order to slow down further erosion of public and market confidence. Various scientific and technical reforms were made to meet societal concerns relating to the safety of GM crops. In this context, the precautionary principle, environmental post-market monitoring and traceability were adopted as ways to cope with scientific uncertainties. Labeling, traceability, co-existence and public information were installed in an attempt to meet the general public request for more information about GM agro-food products, and the specific demand to respect the consumers' and farmers' freedom of choice. Despite these efforts, today, the explicit role of public participation and/or ethical consultation during authorization procedures is at best minimal. Moreover, no legal room was created to progress to an integral sustainability evaluation during market procedures. It remains to be seen whether the recent policy shift towards greater transparency about value judgments, plural viewpoints and scientific uncertainties will be one step forward in integrating ethical concerns more explicitly in risk analysis. As such, the regulatory frame stands open for further interpretation, reflecting in various degrees a continued interplay with societal concerns relating to GM agro-food products. In this regard, both societal concerns and diversely interpreted regulatory criteria can be inferred as signaling a request -and even a quest -to render more explicit the broader-than-scientific dimension of the actual risk analysis.

Regulating coexistence of GM and non-GM crops without jeopardizing economic incentives

“…In the EU, a tolerance threshold of 0.9% for food and feed has been agreed upon [3], although no threshold is officially in place for seeds to date [12]. At a meeting of the EU agriculture ministers, held in June 2007, it was decided that the 0.9% threshold would also apply for organic products, meaning that an organic product with an adventitious content of GM material below 0.9% could still be labeled as organic.…”

Systemic risks of genetically modified crops: the need for new approaches to risk assessment

“…This scientific dispute in combination with societal and economic impacts influenced the revision of the EU GMO regulations [35]. The new EU biosafety Directive 2001/18/EC supports the ecological approach and prescribes a more detailed environmental risk assessment (ERA), establishes the precautionary principle as baseline for decision making and also serves as ERA reference for the regulation (EC) 1829/2003 on GM food and feed market approval.…”

Ethics in the Societal Debate on Genetically Modified Organisms: A (Re)Quest for Sense and Sensibility

“…Via various waves of institutional reforms, a gradual revision of the existing legislations and the creation of new EU institutions were devised in order to restore public and market confidence (Devos et al, 2006). In response to the societal concerns about harmfulness and scientific uncertainties related to GM agrofood products, various scientific and technical reforms were made at the level of the risk analysis: (i) the environmental risk assessment was differentiated from the product-specific ones (e.g., foods and feeds), (ii) risk assessment methodologies and approaches were harmonized, and (iii) new institutions such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) were created to provide ''independent, objective and transparent'' science-based advice.…”

“…Legal objectives mainly aim at (i) creating an internal market, (ii) ensuring a high level of protection of human health, animal health, and the environment, (iii) enabling consumers and farmers to exercise effectively their freedom of choice in the market place, and (iv) not misleading consumers and users (Devos et al, 2006;Jensen, 2006). There is no legal room to evaluate whether GM crops fulfill wider socio-economic and environmental aspirations, and thus to evolve towards a sustainability assessment.…”

“…Here, by 1999, a growing societal opposition towards genetically modified (GM) agro-food products contributed to the installation of a de facto moratorium on the commercialization of new GMOs, and to the implementation of one of the most stringent process-based regulatory regimes worldwide (Devos et al, 2006).…”