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Resolution on the draft Commission implementing decision renewing the authorisation for the placing on the market for cultivation of genetically modified maize MON 810 (MON-ØØ81Ø-6) seeds

2016/2921(RSP)

The European Parliament adopted by 371 votes to 189, with 40 abstentions, a resolution on the draft Commission implementing decision renewing the authorisation for the placing on the market for cultivation of genetically modified maize MON 810 (MON-ØØ81Ø-6) seeds (D046170/00).

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

Parliament was concerned that the genetically modified maize MON 810 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, as regards local mortality, EFSA considered two levels of ‘acceptable’ local mortality (0.5 % and 1 %).

However, in its scientific opinion adopted on 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 actually clearly states 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:

  • in its draft implementing decision, the Commission chose the level of local mortality of below 0.5 % and provides in its annex for arbitrary isolation distances of at least 5 metres between a MON 810 maize field and a protected habitat, despite the fact that EFSA clearly states, as confirmed, that imposing an isolation distance of 20 metres around a protected habitat from the nearest crop of maize Bt11/MON 810, which is four times further than the distance proposed by the Commission:
  • EFSA arbitrarily excluded cross-pollination in maize from the scope of its scientific opinions on MON 810 maize, thereby overlooking the potential risks to biological diversity;
  • in its scientific opinion adopted on 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;
  • there is a record of continuous lack of enforcement of post-market environmental monitoring, as EFSA observes that the 2014 PMEM report shows partial non-compliance with the implementation of non-Bt refugia in Spain as observed in previous years; 
  • the EFSA GMO Panel strongly reiterates in vain each year its recommendations on MON 810 post-market environmental monitoring, namely to provide more detailed information on the sampling methodology, as well as the importance of national GMO cultivation registers.

On this basis, Parliament considered that the draft Commission implementing decision exceeds the implementing powers provided for in provided for in Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council on genetically modified food and feed. 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.