EU's Fischler optimistic on GM food, EU beef issues
Date: 22-May-01
Country: USA
Author: Carey Gillam
"Europe is very much in favor of new technology and biotechnology," Fischler told a press conference at a World Agricultural Forum World Congress in St. Louis. But he added: "There is a huge sensitivity for food safety."
He said a proposal outlining traceability as well as labeling standards and requirements for genetically modified (GM) crops and foods would be completed in the next 30 to 60 days and would then be presented to the EU member states, with a "solution" hopefully agreed to "soon."
Tolerance levels are up for debate, but Fischler said he believed tolerance levels for products containing GM material would be "acceptable" at 1 percent. Anything much higher than that - specifically, one suggestion of tolerance of up to 5 percent - would not be acceptable, he said.
Registration applications for GM food products have been bogged down for years as Europe wrestles with controversy over biotech foods. But Fischler said he saw that backlog breaking in the near future.
In other comments, Fischler said that he felt optimistic after he met last week with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman that Europe's embattled beef industry would soon be getting a boost from a re-opening of U.S. borders.
The United States in March banned fresh meat products from all 15 EU countries because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. The disease has only been found in four of the EU member countries.
Veneman said on Friday that the ban would be relaxed in some regions in the next couple of weeks.
Fischler said reform plans for European farm policy and budgetary issues were taking into account the severe hit that the European beef industry has taken of late. The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Europe came fresh on the heels of the spread of "mad-cow" disease, a brain-wasting illness that can be transmitted to humans.
Efforts to eradicate foot-and-mouth alone had resulted in the slaughter of about a million animals, including 200,000 cattle, Fischler said.
Now the EU must restore its stocks as well as its markets, a factor which could require funds to be shifted away from other agricultural spending programs, Fischler said.
"We need to pay for the consequences of the disaster in the beef industry," he said.
