from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

This week's Weekly Watch is a bumper issue covering two weeks' worth of news, since technical problems prevented our producing last week's issue. Apologies to all our readers and supporters.

There's particularly happy news from Ireland - BASF has pulled out of their threatened GM potato trials.

Claire [email protected]
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

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CONTENTS
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EUROPEAN UNION
AROUND EUROPE
ASIA
THE AMERICAS
AFRICA
CHURCHES
FAO
LOBBYWATCH
LABELLING
GENE THERAPY
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
CORPORATE CRIMES

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EUROPEAN UNION
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+ ONLY 125 MEPs WANT GM-FREE EUROPE?? TAKE ACTION!
Please lobby members of the European Parliament to sign a statement which calls for every region and country in Europe to have the right to refuse the import and trading of GMOs. Only 125 MEPs have signed thus far. Another 225 MEP signatures are still needed in order to make this a law.

You can find ready list of the e-mails to the MEPs and also example of letters which you can use at http://icppc.pl/pl/gmo/index.php?id=224

There is a list of MEPs who have already signed at http://www.icppc.pl/nowy/panel/files/gmo/pe-listapodpisow.pdf

+ EU NATIONS DIVIDED OVER ORGANIC FOOD RULES
European Union agriculture ministers were divided over plans on Monday to set up new EU-wide labeling of organic and GM foods.

Several nations, including Belgium, Austria, Italy and Greece, demanded that any new rules on what constitutes organic should ensure that biotech content of the product be near zero, and not the proposed 0.9 percent limit, which EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel argued was needed to account for accidental contamination.

Austrian Farm Minister Josef Proell, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said EU ministers agreed they "are keen on protecting the farmers that wish to stick to GMO-free methods."

Several EU nations, including Poland, Austria, France, Luxembourg, Hungary, and Germany, have voiced concern over the lack of rules on that issue. Those countries have also instituted bans on EU-approved GM crops and some, like Poland and Greece, want a total ban on the growing of GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6553

+ COULD GM ISSUE TOPPLE EU CONSTITUTION?
We recently reported a statement by an Irish Member of the European Parliament, that if the European Commission persists in its misguided policy to force GM seeds and crops onto the market, the people of Ireland will vote against adopting the European Constitution and against further EU integration.

We've received the following comments from Craig Sams as to how Europe got itself into the position whereby its people and elected representatives are overruled by an unelected and unaccountable European Commision.

Craig writes:

A bit of background on EU politics and GM.

In 1991, when the EU regulation 2092/91 was passed by the EU Parliament it contained an absolute prohibition of genetically engineered seeds or other material. It didn't cover feed as the livestock rules were part of subsequent legislation.

After the Parliament passed the regulation, which was the product of consultation via the "competent authorities" of each member state with the representatives of the organic movement in that member state, it went to the Commission for final approval.

The Commissioners amended the ban on genetically engineered seeds to say that it was not an absolute prohibition and could be amended at a later date under the provisions of Article 14, which sets out the process that enables the regulation to be updated.

The Parliament were furious with this ex post facto alteration of legislation that they had already passed and a motion of censure of the Commission was passed.

The Commission then reminded the Parliament of the constitutional facts of life within the EU, i.e. that the Parliament is a talking shop and the real power rests with the Commissioners. If Parliament wanted to overrule the Commission, they could only do so by dismissing the entire Commission, a nuclear option they were reluctant to exercise.

In 1999 a report of independent experts stated that the Commission, particularly Edith Cresson's youth training department, had lost control of their finances and their staff activities and that fraud was rampant. At this stage the Parliament, remembering the confrontation of 1991, gathered up their nerve and sacked the entire Commission, led by Jacques Santer at the time.

The GM issue is the pressure point where the power of lobbyists over the Commission is outweighed by the power of the democratically elected MEPs - with even more MEPs from countries where Monsanto's lobbying power is pretty weak, I'd hope that the Parliament could be more rigorous in stopping the Commission running away with things again, but the lack of any intermediate step between sacking the lot of them and just standing up to them is a real constitutional problem. Set alongside the refusal of the EU's auditors to approve their accounts for the past decade, one wonders if perhaps a rotten and powerless government is not such a bad thing (the "best government is the least government" principle).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6529

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