Korrespondenz - international
Open Letter to EU-Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker: Plea for coherent decision-making in the EU
June-09-2017
Dear President Juncker,
All institutions of the European
Union should be measured by the way they comply with democratic and legal
principles and follow the rules and regulations laid down by the Community
itself, i.e., the Member States and the EU-Parliament.
This applies also to the
forthcoming decision of the Commission on the approval for commercial
cultivation of three genetically modified maize lines (1507, Bt11 and MON810).
On 28 March 2017, the representatives of the 28 Member States did not come to
an agreement on such approval. According to EU rules, this should lead to the
following: The Commission must now take the decision to authorize commercial
cultivation of the three maize lines, in accordance with Regulation (EU) No
182/2001, Directive 2001/18/EC and Regulation (EC) 1829/2003. Additional
justification for the Commission’s approval for cultivation of the
above-mentioned three genetically modified maize lines is set forth below:
·
The
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), responsible for the risk assessment of
genetically modified plants has performed a risk assessment of the genetically
modified plants. After thorough scientific examination, no risks for human
health and to the environment have been identified.
·
The EU
Commission is obliged to comply with its own regulations. According to the
principle of supra-nationality within the European Union, the Member States are
standing down from exercising their national sovereignty and jointly carrying
it out on a European level. The directives and regulations adopted are
obligatory for all.
In addition, the principle of
legal compliance applies. To prevent arbitrariness the EU system can only work
if all Member States adhere to the rules previously agreed by all.
· Such a decision will send a
strong signal to such individual Member States that prefer to transfer their
responsibility to the EU Commission. In addition, it will respect the decision
of the Member States who voted in favor of cultivation.
Those members of the EU who by their voting behavior repeatedly refuse to
make clear and binding decisions – knowing that according to the legal
regulations the EU Commission is subsequently obliged to make a decision – do
not live up to the responsibility assigned to them. Instead, they actually make
the procedure both time-consuming and cost-intensive by “hiding” instead of
taking responsibility. Such practices, which meanwhile have unfortunately been
established and are common regarding genetic modification and herbicides, not
only diminish the confidence in the work of the European Union, but are also an
expression of disregard for common democratic principles.
We therefore kindly ask you to
act according to the democratic principles applicable to all EU members and
take a timely decision to authorize the three genetically modified maize
varieties.
Respectfully,
Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Jany, Wissenschaftlerkreis Grüne
Gentechnik e.V. (WGG)
Ricardo Serra Arias, President of ASAJA Andalucía
Philippe Dumont, Association Française des
Biotechnologies Végétales
Pedro Barato Triguero President of ASAJA España
Prof. Hon. Emeritus Klaus
Ammann, University of Bern,
Switzerland
Prof. Erik Andreasson, Unit of Resistance Biology, Department of Plant Protection Biology,
Swedish University
of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden
Eugénia de Andrade, PhD,
Independent Researcher, Lisbon, Portugal
Prof. Geert Angenon, Laboratory of Plant Genetics, Faculty of Science and Bioengineering
Sciences Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB),Belgium
Assoc. Prof. Bojin
Bojinov, Head, Department of
Genetics and Plant breeding, Agricultural University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Prof. Dr. Borut Bohanec, Head of Chair of Genetics, Biotechnology, Statistics and Plant Breeding
at Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Jose Ignacio Cubero, Emeritus professor Plant
Genetics and breeding, University of Cordoba
Sylvie De Buck, PhD, VIB-International Plant
Biotechnology Outreach (IPBO), Belgium
John
Davison,
Research Director (retired), French National Institute for Agricultural
Research, Versailles, France
Roberto
Defez,
Tenured staff scientist, IBBR, National Research Council Italy
Geert De
Jaeger ,Associate
Department Director, Functional Interactomics, VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University,
Belgium
Dennis Eriksson, Researcher, Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of
Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Alnarp, Sweden
Prof. G. Gheysen, Head Department Molecular Biotechnology, Faculty of BioScience
Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium
Prof. Jonathan Gressel, Plant & Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science,
Rehovot, Israel
Nicolae Hristea, Agrobiotechrom, USAMV Bucharest, Romania
Dr Penny Hundleby, Senior Plant Scientist, UK
Drew L. Kershen, Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA
Dr. Harry A. Kuiper, former chair of the EFSA GMO Panel, formerly RIKILT, Institute of Food
Safety Wageningen University & Research Center, Wageningen, Netherlands
Prof. Alan McHughen, University of California, Riverside, Ca, USA
Dr. Piero Morandini, Assistant professor in Plant Physiology, Department of Biosciences,
University of Milan,Italy
Prof. Reinhard Renneberg, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, SAR Hong Kong, China
Rodomiro
Ortiz, PhD, Faculty Professor,
Genetics & Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
(SLU), Alnarp, Sweden
Dr Agnès Ricroch , University of Paris Sud,
President of the Life Sciences Section of the French Academy of Agriculture,
France
Anneli Ritala-Nurmi, Principal Scientist, Project Manager, VTT Technical Research Centre of
Finland Ltd, Solutions for Natural Resources and Environment
Dr. Anne-Christine
Ritschkoff, Executive Vice
President, Strategic Research, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd.
Angelo Santino, Senior Scientist, ISPA, National Research Council Ital.
Giovanni Tagliabue, Independent researcher, Carugo (Como), Italia
Prof. Tomasz Twardowski, Head of Protein Biosynthesis Department, Institute of Bioorganic
Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań, Poland
Tomas Vanek, PhD Head of
Laboratory of Plant Biotechnologies of Institute of Experimental Botany AS CR,
Prague, Czech Republic
Prof. Nathalie Verbruggen, Interfaculty School of
Bioengineering, Free University of Brussels (ULB)
Prof. Li-Hua Zhu, Department
of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden
Response of Vytenis Andriukaites, EU-Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, to the open letter to EU-Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker – July-17-2017.