EU legislators must reach cloned animals compromise by end March

03-Mar-2011 - Last updated on 03-Mar-2011 at 11:12 GMT

With EU institutions facing a ‘guillotine’ at the end of March regarding the conciliation process on the Novel Foods Regulation, food from cloned animals and their descendants now constitutes the main obstacle to progress.

Members of the European Parliament (EP) are pressing for watertight measures – or interim measures – to ensure that no foodstuffs from cloned animals or, critically, their descendants are put on the market. Member States, on the other hand, want only a ‘first generation’ ban.

Explaining the background to the impasse, senior adviser in food law at Brussels-based consultancy EAS Patrick Coppens said: “This is clearly an ideological issue for the Parliament. Member States take a different view, largely for economic reasons, and those views are diametrically opposed.”

He added: “It’s mainly the cloning issue which is the sticking point on Novel Foods. Nanotechnology is less of an issue now.”

Parliament negotiators said they could not comment on the ongoing conciliation process. But in a statement, chair of the negotiating delegation and vice-president of the EP Gianni Pittella said: “We have proposed adding an article in the Novel Foods Regulation to clearly state that no food from cloned animals or their descendants shall be put on the market. I urge Member States to recognise that it would be insufficient to ban food only from cloned animals.”

Back to the drawing board

So far the process has taken two years. If no compromise is reached by March 30th then, according to EAS, it will be “back to the drawing board” for the Commission. It could draw up new proposals omitting the questions of cloning and nanotechnology. In the meantime, the existing Novel Foods Regulation would remain on the statute books. In this case, both cloning and nanotechnology would be governed by the existing regulation.

Otherwise, it is not clear what kind of compromise could be achieved. Pittella stated: “We cannot solve all the issues related to cloning immediately. Separate legislation will be needed in future. But we do need a legally sound solution in the interim.” The problem is that this interim solution could prove just as much of a sticking point as the regulation itself.

There is something of a subtext to the entrenched positions being defended on cloning. Coppens explained: “The Lisbon Treaty means that Parliament will no longer have the automatic power of scrutiny. But it will still want a veto, and if the Council gives in to this over Novel Foods, it will set a precedent for the future. Within food law, this is really the first time the issue has come up.”

Last year, TNS carried out Eurobarometer research among EU consumers on subjects including products from cloned animals. Some 60% of those questioned did not think animal cloning was good for the national economy, while 23% thought it was. The proportion believing the technology was not necessarily safe for future generations was 64%.