'technical Solution' To Facilitate Gmo-contaminated Imports

摘要

The European Commission services have determined the method that they wish to use to make it easier to import into the Union food and feed contaminated by unauthorised GMOs. In an eight-page document on different "policy options", they propose to amend legislation on official controls "before the summer", with a view to preventing whole shipments of maize, rice or soy from being held up in European ports when they are contaminated by less than 0.2% or 0.3% of unauthorised GMOs. This "purely technical solution" does not need to be approved by MEPs, note the experts. "It is possible to set a specific detection limit for GMOs in a legal text adopted under committee procedure," note the services headed by Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou. On top of the detection threshold of 0.1%, they suggest adding "a margin to cover uncertainties related to sampling and analysis". This margin of error "could lead the member states to multiply the detection threshold by two or three before triggering actions" by their customs services.