MEPs in the Parliament's environment committee have voted in favour of stricter measures governing accidental contamination and the labelling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), reports Cordis.
During the committee's meeting on 22 May, MEPs adopted by 31 votes to 21 an amendment aimed at reducing the acceptable level of GM materials present in 'GM free' products due to adventitious, or technically unavoidable, contamination from 0.9 per cent to 0.5 per cent.
In March the Agriculture Council adopted a common position suggesting a limit of 0.9 per cent, and during the debate that preceded the environment committee's vote, a representative from the Commission argued that a threshold of 0.5 per cent would be impossible to observe. Despite this, members opted for the lower figure.
During the same meeting, the committee also voted on a report by Greek MEP Antonios Trakatellis on the traceability and labelling of GMOs. Having seen half of Parliament's initial amendments accepted in the Council's common position in March, the committee proposed fewer changes at the second reading stage.
However, MEPs did oppose a Council proposal to allow GM producers to replace precise descriptions of all GMOs in a single product with a 'declaration of use', and proposed that any pre-packaged product containing GM products should carry the words 'this product is produced from GMOs' on the label.
The committee's amendments will be voted on during the Parliament's July plenary session in Strasbourg. Europe's agriculture ministers are due to discuss the issue of coexistence of GM and non GM crops at an Agriculture Council meeting on 26 May in Brussels, where a Commission representative will present the results of a roundtable discussion on the issue, held in Brussels on 24 April.