Green MEPs Pierre Jonckheer, Paul Lannoye, Claude Turmes and former Belgian Vice-Premier Minister and Minister for Transport, Isabelle Durant recalled their opposition to lifting the GM0 moratorium to President Prodi.

For the Greens, there is much at stake on this issue and taking into account a wealth of expertise that expressed doubt about the safety of GMOs, the Greens feel it is not appropriate for the Commission to lift the moratorium now. They reminded President Prodi that public opinion is very hostile to genetic modification, and they said that if the Commission took such a decision it would have a certain negative impact on the European elections.

They think that given the negative opinion of certain countries (France, Luxembourg, Portugal, Austria, Denmark and Greece) and the abstention of others on this subject (Germany, Spain and Belgium), the Commission should refrain from doing something that might be seen as an abuse of power. This situation would be regrettable, as the Greens are very much in favour of an increased role for the Commission. The Greens launched a last appeal to the European Commissioners to listen to public opinion and asked them to make any decisions on the issue dependent on a clear majority in Council and a vote in the European Parliament.

Prof Arnold Cassola, Alternattiva Demokratika candidate for the European elections in Malta, called on Maltese Commissioner Joe Borg to vote convincingly in favour of maintaining the moratorium on the production of GMOs in Europe. “It is important that our Commissioner realises that until we have fool proof scientific evidence that GMOs are harmless for health, they should be blocked. We cannot risk jeopardising the health of our children in Malta if we do not know the real effects of GMOs.”

President Prodi, having examined the dossier, said that he was ready to delay the decision if a sufficient number of Commissioners expressed doubts at their weekly meeting tomorrow. If there was insufficient doubt, it would be his duty to support the majority of the Commission, he said. According to information obtained by the Greens, eight out of the 30 Commissioners have expressed doubts about lifting the moratorium.