The final act of a controversy over GM crops that sets America against Europe unfolds today in Geneva. The World Trade Organisation will hear the closing arguments in a case where the public authority of both the European commission and the WTO is at stake.
66. ______
Throughout the European Union there has been extensive concern about GM crops. Among the public's fears is the potential for long-term harm to the environment—for example through the increased use of herbicides and the gene flow to wild species—and to human health, should new allergens appear. In a wider context of uncertainties about the future of agriculture and of a pervasive lack of confidence in official approaches to the handling of technological risk, consumer rejection of GM has been widespread.
67. ______
The EU's initial submissions to the WTO dispute panel argued that its approach was necessarily "prudent and precautionary". It emphasised that the US, Canada and Argentina were challenging the right of countries to establish levels of protection from the risks of GM appropriate to their circumstances—and that the risks and uncertainties were complex and serious. The outcome of the case would be of enormous significance worldwide.
68. ______
Significantly, the commission has also shifted its defence in the WTO case in a way that suggests a direct link with this new tactic on GM approvals. The commission is unwilling to publish its recent submissions to the dispute panel (despite requests from Friends of the Earth under freedom of information rules), but it is clear from the US's response, which has been made public, that the commission now wants the dispute to be ruled "moot" because GM approvals have started. In other words, it has caved in to US pressure and is rearranging the pieces.
69. ______
The GM dispute has been unfolding at a time when the future of the EU is a fraught political question in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Here, referendums on the currency and EU constitution are looming. A key Euro-sceptic weapon is to whip up fear of a remote unaccountable bureaucracy. When the commission acts, as in this case, in a fashion so strongly at odds with the EU's citizens and their political representatives, the result can only be further cynicism and hostility.
70. ______
It is not only Europe's institutions that are being tested by the GM dispute. The already tattered credibility of the WTO itself is also at stake.
On both sides of the Atlantic, the US challenge to Europe's initial stance has attracted exceptional interest from civil society groups—to the point where several international coalitions have submitted amicus curiae briefs directly to the panel. All these point to the need for the WTO to rely on more enlightened approaches to risk assessment, respecting the different cultural and environmental circumstances of individual countries.
A. The commission is playing a dangerous game. Member states and their populations are divided even on whether the two varieties of GM maize recently approved satisfy the EU's own regulatory criteria. However, the commission appears to have decided that satisfying the US is more important than respecting the continuing concern among the people and governments of member states. It is a course of action that could have reverberations for the European project as a whole.
B. Insistence on a one-size-fits-all approach tailored to US norms—to which Europe now risks deferring—is undermining the WTO's authority. If successive crises of the GM kind are to be avoided, the WTO needs to change—and fast.
C. In response to these worries, the EU revised its regulatory framework to include wider issues such as traceability, labelling and impacts on farmland wildlife. This process is still under way, with countries developing national plans on how, if GM crops are grown, to limit contamination of non-GM crops, and how to ascribe liability should harm result.
D. In May 2003 the US, Argentina and Canada, urged on by their industry lobbies, complained to the WTO about Europe's moratorium on GM approvals, imposed in October 1998. As the biggest producers of GM crops, they felt the European position was damaging their trade interests and argued that it could not be scientifically justified.
E. Last summer, however, while arguments were still being put, the European commission awarded the first marketing approvals since October 1998. The awards—for importing two varieties of GM maize, for food and feed—ended the de facto Europe-wide moratorium, but the commission had to use provisions designed for when the council of ministers is unable to reach agreement. In effect, the bureaucracy stepped in and forced through a particular outcome, despite continuing political disagreement across the EU. This now looks set to become a growing pattern.
F. The new commission, which came into being last November, has a chance to reconsider the matter anew. Beating in mind the broader implications of the case for its own future standing, it should look again at the GM approvals granted by its predecessor.