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Resolution on the draft Commission implementing decision concerning the placing on the market for cultivation of genetically modified maize 1507 (DAS-Ø15Ø7-1) seeds

2016/2920(RSP)

The European Parliament adopted by 375 votes to 103 with 36 abstentions a resolution on the draft Commission implementing decision concerning the placing on the market for cultivation of genetically modified maize 1507 (DAS-Ø15Ø7-1) seeds (D046172/00).

The resolution was tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

Parliament was concerned that the genetically modified maize 1507 may harm non-targeted lepidopteran species. It also questioned the principle of ‘acceptable local mortality’ of non-targeted Lepidoptera, introduced by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

In its draft implementing decision the Commission claims that EFSA considered two levels of ‘acceptable’ local mortality (0.5 % and 1 %).

However, in its scientific opinion of 28 May 2015 updating risk management recommendations to limit exposure of non-target lepidoptera of conservation concern in protected habitats to Bt-maize pollen, EFSA clearly emphasises that any specific protection level used here for illustration by the EFSA GMO Panel is intended as an example only and that ‘any threshold applied must, by necessity, be arbitrary and should be subject to amendment according to the protection goals in operation within the EU.

Members noted the following points:

  • the Commission chose the level of local mortality of below 0.5 % and, in the annex thereto, provides for arbitrary isolation distances of at least 20 metres between a maize 1507 field and a protected habitat, despite the fact that EFSA clearly states that imposing an isolation distance of 30 metres around a protected habitat from the nearest crop of maize 1507 would be expected to reduce local mortality, even that of highly sensitive non-target lepidopteran larvae, to a level of or below 0.5 %, which is further than the distance proposed by the Commission;
  • in its scientific opinion of 28 May 2015, EFSA stated that currently, there are insufficient data available to allow Bt-related larval mortality to be put into the context of overall mortality.

On this basis, Parliament considers that the draft Commission implementing decision exceeds the implementing powers provided for in Directive 2001/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms. It also considered the risk assessment on the cultivation conducted by EFSA to be incomplete and the risk management recommendations proposed by the Commission to be inadequate. Accordingly, it called on the Commission to withdraw its draft implementing decision.