Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
reconsider their safeguard measures on GMO cultivation, and rather
adopt suitable co-existence measures to avoid the unintended presence
of GMOs in conventional or organic crops.
On July 15, 2009, Canada, acknowledging that the EC regulatory pro-
cedures on GMO are working, as evidenced by twenty-one authoriza-
tions since the date of establishment of the WTO panel, and the EU
agreed to end the six-year WTO dispute.
23
EU and Argentina settled
their WTO case in March 19, 2010, while the dispute with the United
States is still ongoing.
24
Regulation Concerning Novel Foods
Because the EU Directives on the deliberate release of GMO focused
mainly on environmental aspects, a new Regulation providing for food
safety assessment was established in 1997.
25
Regulation (EC) No 258/97
concerning novel foods and novel food ingredients (Novel Foods Regu-
lation) introduced both an approval and a notification procedure. The
scope of the Regulation covers GMO-derived foods as well as other
foods considered novel because they had not hitherto been used for
human consumption to a significant degree within the EU. The Regula-
tion also provided specific labeling requirements for GMO-derived food
with the intention to enable consumers to make an informed choice. An
additional Regulation entered into force in 2000, specifying that only
GMO-derived foods that contain new proteins or recombinant DNA
(rDNA) would be subject to the GMO labeling requirements. A thresh-
old of 1 percent of adventitiously present GMO-derived material in
foods was established.
26
23
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1142&type=.
24
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/325&format=
HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en.
25
Regulation (EC) No 258/97. Official Journal of the European Communities L 43: 1-7.
14.2.1997.
26
Regulation (EC) No 49/2000. Official Journal of the European Communities L 6: 13-
14, 11.1.2000.
