The Commission is made of 15 habilitated scholars with a voting right and representatives of interested ministries, the Commission for consumer protection and three representatives of environmental NGOs with no voting right. The session was convened at the request of the Ministry of Agriculture and Foods for the presentation and review of the environmental risk assessment of the use of genetically modified corn MON810 on the basis of newly available scientific information for its environmental impact in connection of the introduced ban in France based on the safeguard clause of article 23 of Directive 2001/18.
The Coalition “For the Nature in Bulgaria” considers strange the fact that in the materials of the Ministry were included only selected articles, whereas any information about the evidence used for the prohibition of MON810 in other countries such as Austria and Hungary was missing.
The Commission was not informed that the GM-potato “Amflora” had already been banned in Austria and Hungary. Despite the obvious lack of knowledge about the scientific results in the GMO field in the other countries, the commission members did not give a hearing to the information provided by the NGO representatives and refused to give the floor to Dr. Svetla Nikolova. The Commission decided that because of the lack of new Bulgarian scientific research it can rely only on the information received from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This agency has been strongly criticized for its one-sided assessments with an obvious lobbyist character that benefit the firms selling GMO seeds and accompanying chemicals.
“The lack of sufficient scientific argumentation and the extreme intolerance toward NGO representatives of the scholars who are members of the GMO Commission throws into doubt the objectivity of the Commission’s work. The opinion of the Commission is in utter contradiction with the clearly stated positions of the public, business organizations, and scientific institutions,” stated Dr. Svetla Nikolova.
In the expectation of the decision of the Minister of Agriculture regarding the ban of MON810 in Bulgaria, the “GMO-Free Bulgaria” Coalition and the Coalition “For the Nature in Bulgaria” are of the strong opinion that the Ministry of Agriculture and Foods, complying with the new law should undertake the same procedure for the ban of the “Amflora” potato as well.
For contacts:
Svetla Nikolova, 02/ 8466 675, 0888 359 239, svetla.nikolova(at)agrolink.org
Translated by: Margarita Petrova