GMO free zones, biodiversity and the prevention of GMO contamination.

For the European GREENS it is of utmost priority to preserve the right of producers and consumers to live free of GMO. We strictly oppose the cultivation and dissemination of GMOs in agriculture and  food at the expense of traditional and organic farming. Moreover, there is no scientific evidence that GMOs are safe and not harmful for the environment or human health. The use of GMOs in agriculture and the food chain unnecessarily increases risks without offering  benefits to our societies. We therefore strongly welcome the fact that the EU-moratorium on licences for the use of GMOs in agriculture continues to be in place. 

The European GREENS strongly support a Europe without GMOs:  if this cannot be achieved, then they are in favour of all citizen as well as regional and national authorities’ initiatives to establish GMO-free zones. The protection of our biological and food diversity is a major objective of our policy. In this respect, it is essential that the EU takes all possible precautionary legislative measures, in order to keep seeds free of GMO in order to ensure that conventional and organic farming can stay free of GMO-contamination throughout Europe.

The European Greens urge the EU-Commission to maintain the moratorium on release of GMO  until all five precautionary requirements are firmly established in practice: safety, traceability, labelling, protection against contamination (coexistence), and liability. With regard to the absence of European liability rules,  the European GREENS urge the European Commission and the Council to respect the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety ratified by the EU and particularly its article 27, which regulates the adoption of international rules and procedures in the field of liability and compensation for damage resulting from transboundary movements of living modified organisms. 

We fully support all efforts made by Renate Kuenast in order to maintain the moratorium on GMO.