Contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms (GMOs). Recast

PURPOSE: recast of Council Directive 90/219/EEC of 23 April 1990 on the contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms.

PROPOSED ACT: Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council

CONTENT: the codification of Council Directive 90/219/EEC has been initiated by the Commission, and a relevant proposal has been submitted to the legislative authority (see COD/2006/0100). The new Directive was to have superseded the various acts incorporated in it.

In the meantime Council Decision 1999/468/EC laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission has been amended by Decision 2006/512/EC, which introduced a regulatory procedure with scrutiny for measures of general scope designed to amend non-essential elements of a basic instrument adopted in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251 of the Treaty (the co-decision procedure), including by deleting some of those elements or by supplementing the instrument by the addition of new non-essential elements.

In accordance with the joint statement of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on Decision 2006/512/EC, for this new procedure to be applicable to instruments adopted in accordance with the co-decision procedure which are already in force, those instruments must be adjusted in accordance with the applicable procedures.

The Commission feels that it is therefore appropriate to transform the codification of Directive 90/219/EEC into a recast in order to incorporate the amendments necessary for the adjustment to the regulatory procedure with scrutiny.

On comitology, the text now states the following:

-power should be conferred on the Commission in particular to adopt the amendments necessary to adapt Annex II, Part A, and Annexes III, IV and V to technical progress and to adapt Annex II, Part C. Since those measures are of general scope and are designed to amend non-essential elements of this Directive, they should be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny;

-the new elements introduced into this Directive only concern the committee procedures. They therefore do not need to be transposed by the Member States;

-the Directive is without prejudice to the obligations of the Member States relating to the time-limits for transposition into national law of the Directives set out in Annex VI, Part B.