Friends of the Earth (FOE) and Access Info Europe unite to enforce compliance with European legislation
Madrid, 14th of March 2013 – FOE and Access Info Europe have lodged an appeal to the Ministry of agriculture, food and environment demanding that it complies with European standards of transparency and that it publish the exact data about the location of the fields of commercial genetically modified (GM) crops.
The appeal challenges the lack of information given by the Ministry in response to a request submitted on 17 December 2012 (available at tuderechoasaber.es). The request called for a complete list of all the plots of land with commercial GM corn, with exact geographic locations and areas.
The letter from the Ministry, sent on 6th of February 2013, provided a mere list autonomous communities, the same list that appears on the Ministery website. The information provided by the Ministry is “inadequate, evasive and lacking in details” says Helen Darbishire, Director of Access Info Europe.
“A registry with the exact location of GM crops is essential to avoid contamination of the adjacent conventional and ecological fields“, says Liliane Spendeler, Director of FOE.
The lack of transparency from the Spanish Government directly clashes with obligations contained in a judgment of the European Court of Justice 2009
Spain, with almost 100,000 hectares of genetically-modified maize is the only country in the European Union that cultivates GMOs at such a large scale. Meanwhile, the major European agricultural powers, such as France and Germany prohibit the cultivation of GMOs, so access to the information demanded by the EU should be a basic principle. For this reason there are already many associations demanding transparency about GM crops.
Despite not having answered all the questions put forward from the NGOs, the Minister of Agriculture did admit in his letter that in Spain “the feed manufacturing industry uses raw materials from both conventional and genetically modified crops, all of which are mixed at destination. For this reason, everything is labeled and marketed as genetically modified“. This confirms that all animal product consumed in Spain (unless they are organic), like meat, milk, eggs, etc, comes from animals fed with GMOs, without informing the consumer.
Spain has had a law on access to environmental information since 2006, but according to the latest report of tuderechoasaber.es, only 22% of the responses to requests for access to environmental information are satisfactory, while almost half (47%) end in silence.
The lack of information about GM crops offered by the Ministry has led FOE to promote informative campaigns on the impacts of genetically modified crops, such as the campaign launched last week on www.unicoseneuropa.org.
For more information, please contact us:
Teresa Rodríguez, Amigos de la Tierra
e-mail: prensa@tierra.org | + 34 91 306 99 00 | móvil: 680 936 327
Alicia Costas, Access Info Europe
e-mail: alicia@access-info.org | tel: +34 91 365 65 58 | móvil: +34 655 970 814
Notes:
[1] The 12th of March Directive 2001/18/EC on the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms into the environment requires that such information be made available to the public through a registry. [2] Es el propio Ministro de Agricultura, quien haciéndose eco de la jurisprudencia del TJUE que citamos en nuestro escrito de solicitud, ha aclarado cualquier duda sobre nuestro derecho a acceder a la información que solicitamos, en la Orden AAA/1601/2012, de 26 de junio, por la que se dictan instrucciones sobre la aplicación en el Departamento de la Ley 27/2006, de 18 de julio, por la que se regulan los derechos de acceso a la información, de participación pública y de acceso a la justicia en materia de medio ambiente cuando concluye al final de su texto :En concreto, en cuanto a la información relativa a organismos modificados genéticamente (OMGs), la sentencia del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea (TJUE) en el asunto C-552/07 ha venido a declarar que no cabe invocar una reserva relativa a la protección del orden público o a otros intereses de Estado para denegar una solicitud de información sobre la ubicación exacta, mediante coordenadas geográficas, del lugar donde se realice la liberación de organismos modificados genéticamente, debiendo prevalecer las exigencias de transparencia derivadas de las Directivas 2001/18 y 2003/4.”
The Ministry of Agriculture keeps secret the location of the genetically modified commercial fields
Friends of the Earth (FOE) and Access Info Europe unite to enforce compliance with European legislation
Madrid, 14th of March 2013 – FOE and Access Info Europe have lodged an appeal to the Ministry of agriculture, food and environment demanding that it complies with European standards of transparency and that it publish the exact data about the location of the fields of commercial genetically modified (GM) crops.
The appeal challenges the lack of information given by the Ministry in response to a request submitted on 17 December 2012 (available at tuderechoasaber.es). The request called for a complete list of all the plots of land with commercial GM corn, with exact geographic locations and areas.
The letter from the Ministry, sent on 6th of February 2013, provided a mere list autonomous communities, the same list that appears on the Ministery website. The information provided by the Ministry is “inadequate, evasive and lacking in details” says Helen Darbishire, Director of Access Info Europe.
“A registry with the exact location of GM crops is essential to avoid contamination of the adjacent conventional and ecological fields“, says Liliane Spendeler, Director of FOE.
The lack of transparency from the Spanish Government directly clashes with obligations contained in a judgment of the European Court of Justice 2009 [1]. The ruling obliges State members of the European Union to publish the ‘place of release’ of GMOs, meaning all the information required by citizens to accurately define the boundaries of the GM plots [2]
Spain, with almost 100,000 hectares of genetically-modified maize is the only country in the European Union that cultivates GMOs at such a large scale. Meanwhile, the major European agricultural powers, such as France and Germany prohibit the cultivation of GMOs, so access to the information demanded by the EU should be a basic principle. For this reason there are already many associations demanding transparency about GM crops.
Despite not having answered all the questions put forward from the NGOs, the Minister of Agriculture did admit in his letter that in Spain “the feed manufacturing industry uses raw materials from both conventional and genetically modified crops, all of which are mixed at destination. For this reason, everything is labeled and marketed as genetically modified“. This confirms that all animal product consumed in Spain (unless they are organic), like meat, milk, eggs, etc, comes from animals fed with GMOs, without informing the consumer.
Spain has had a law on access to environmental information since 2006, but according to the latest report of tuderechoasaber.es, only 22% of the responses to requests for access to environmental information are satisfactory, while almost half (47%) end in silence.
The lack of information about GM crops offered by the Ministry has led FOE to promote informative campaigns on the impacts of genetically modified crops, such as the campaign launched last week on www.unicoseneuropa.org.
For more information, please contact us:
Teresa Rodríguez, Amigos de la Tierra
e-mail: prensa@tierra.org | + 34 91 306 99 00 | móvil: 680 936 327
Alicia Costas, Access Info Europe
e-mail: alicia@access-info.org | tel: +34 91 365 65 58 | móvil: +34 655 970 814
Notes:
[1] The 12th of March Directive 2001/18/EC on the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms into the environment requires that such information be made available to the public through a registry. [2] Es el propio Ministro de Agricultura, quien haciéndose eco de la jurisprudencia del TJUE que citamos en nuestro escrito de solicitud, ha aclarado cualquier duda sobre nuestro derecho a acceder a la información que solicitamos, en la Orden AAA/1601/2012, de 26 de junio, por la que se dictan instrucciones sobre la aplicación en el Departamento de la Ley 27/2006, de 18 de julio, por la que se regulan los derechos de acceso a la información, de participación pública y de acceso a la justicia en materia de medio ambiente cuando concluye al final de su texto :En concreto, en cuanto a la información relativa a organismos modificados genéticamente (OMGs), la sentencia del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea (TJUE) en el asunto C-552/07 ha venido a declarar que no cabe invocar una reserva relativa a la protección del orden público o a otros intereses de Estado para denegar una solicitud de información sobre la ubicación exacta, mediante coordenadas geográficas, del lugar donde se realice la liberación de organismos modificados genéticamente, debiendo prevalecer las exigencias de transparencia derivadas de las Directivas 2001/18 y 2003/4.”