The European Parliament adopted by 430 votes to 185, with 35 abstentions, a resolution on the draft Commission implementing decision renewing the authorisation for the placing on the market of food and feed produced from genetically modified sugar beet H7-1 (KM-ØØØH71-4) pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council on genetically modified food and feed.

While the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) expressed a favourable opinion following the request for marketing authorisation of food, food ingredients and feed produced from H7-1 sugar beet, Member States submitted many critical comments during the consultation period.

Members recalled that GM H7-1 sugar beet expressed the CP4 EPSPS protein, which confers tolerance to glyphosate . In 2015, the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen for humans .

On several occasions the Commission has deplored the fact that, since the entry into force of Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003, authorisation decisions have been adopted by the Commission without the support of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health and that the return of the dossier to the Commission for a final decision, which is very much the exception for the procedure in general, has become the norm for decision-making on GM food and feed authorisations.

Parliament considered that the draft Commission implementing decision exceeds the implementing powers provided for in Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 and is therefore not consistent with Union law.

The Commission is called on to:

withdraw its draft implementing decision; suspend any implementing decision regarding applications for authorisation of GMOs until the authorisation procedure has been revised in such a way so as to address the shortcomings of the current procedure, which has proven inadequate; uphold its commitments under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity by suspending all imports of GM plants which are tolerant to glyphosate; refuse the authorisation of any herbicide-tolerant GM plants without full assessment of the residues from spraying with complementary herbicides and their commercial formulations as applied in the countries of cultivation; fully integrate the risk assessment of the application of complementary herbicides and their residues into that of herbicide-tolerant GM plants, regardless of whether the GM plant concerned is to be cultivated in the Union or for import for food and feed.

Parliament reiterated its commitment to advance work on the Commission proposal amending Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers in order to ensure that, inter alia , if no opinion is delivered by the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health with respect to approvals of GMOs, whether for cultivation or for food and feed, the Commission shall withdraw the proposal. It called on the Council to move forward with its work on the same Commission proposal as a matter of urgency.