Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
However, the Court did not believe that Germany had produced evidence that the beer
additives were harmful - in fact, some were permitted in other German beverages - and
found the absolute prohibition disproportionate (Koppen, 1993; Vogel, 1995).
In contrast, in the mid-1980s the Court largely upheld a Danish restriction on the use
of certain beverage containers. The law stated that beer and soft drinks had to be sold in
reusable containers approved by national authorities to reduce energy use and waste. At
the time, no metal containers had been approved. The Commission challenged the law on
the grounds that it made it di
cult to export beer and soft drinks to Denmark. The Court,
however, found the law to be non-discriminatory between domestic and foreign produc-
ers, and largely proportionate in scale. The Court stated that environmental protection
was a core Community objective, and supported the national deposit-and-return system.
The Court also agreed with Danish authorities that the use of a limited number of
approved containers was critical to ensure their reuse and to meet stated environmental
policy goals (Koppen, 1993).
Food safety has become a major area of EU trade and environment/human health pol-
itics (Ansell and Vogel, 2006). The detection of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)
in British cattle in 1986 resulted in a series of Community legislative moves in the late
1980s and 1990s banning all movement of British beef and beef products. This trade ban,
however, did not stop the spread of BSE to other EU countries, and was eventually lifted.
BSE acted as an important incentive for the creation of the European Food Safety
Authority in 2002, which develops and communicates risk assessments on BSE and other
food- and feed-related issues. The EU also operates a scheme for testing animals for BSE.
In an e
ort to balance food safety and trade concerns, the EU has agreed that member
states in which BSE is detected will be subject to immediate short-term trade bans fol-
lowed by monitoring to help determine when trade restrictions can be removed.
The case of genetically modi
ff
ed (GM) crops also illustrates important trade and envi-
ronment debates and policy issues. Early EU legislation was based on the principle of sub-
stantial equivalence: if a new GM food or food component was found to be substantially
equivalent to an existing food or food component, it could be treated in the same way with
respect to safety and regulation. This legislation, however, allowed member states to invoke
safeguard measures for environmental and human health protection. In 1997, Austria
became the
fi
rst member state to take such action banning a maize variety approved for
cultivation in the EU. Similar actions on particular GM crops were subsequently taken by
Luxembourg, Greece, France, Germany and Italy (Lieberman and Gray, 2006; Skogstad,
2006). This resulted in a patchwork of trade restrictive policies across the internal market.
In 1998 the Commission asked the Council to repeal the
fi
rst bans on GM crops by
Austria and Luxembourg, but member states' votes were split. The Commission was also
divided: while DG Environment tended to side with sceptical member states and green
advocacy groups, DG Science, Research and Development, DG Industrial A
fi
airs and
DG Agriculture took a more pro-GM stand closer to the view of the biotechnology indus-
try. The Commission - because of internal di
ff
erences, divisions among member states
and strong public support for a restrictive GM policy - refrained from initiating infringe-
ment procedures. Instead, the EU in 1998 imposed a
de facto
(but not
de jure
) moratorium
on the approval of new GM crops for commercial cultivation (but licensed GM crops and
foods remained on the market and new food products containing already approved GM
crops were granted licenses) (Lieberman and Gray, 2006).
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