EU urged to act on GMO labelling

Greenpeace today delivered a one million-name petition to the European commission calling for GMO labelling on milk, meat and eggs.

The environmental group claims a "vast" loophole in EU law exempts products from labelling requirements.

Foods like cooking oil and cake mix have to be labelled if the ingredients include 0.9 per cent GMOs or more and animal feed packets must be similarly labelled.

But food products derived from animals fed with GMOs – meat, eggs and milk – do not need to be labelled at all.

The petition, presented to Markos Kyprianou, commissioner for health, was collected in 21 member states between May 2005 and December 2006.

It states: “We demand mandatory labelling on animal products based on GMOs because of citizens’ right to information, a fundamental right in the EU.”

The stalled EU constitution grants civil society the right to call for EU legislation.

“This petition is a call for the EU to stop letting GMOs in through the back door of Europe and onto our plates through a loophole in the law,” said Marco Contiero, of Greenpeace European Unit.

At a news conference, Kyprianou said, "Clearly, the number of signatures on this petition shows the strength of public feeling on the issue of GMOs in animal feed."

"The commission always tries to listen to citizens and I want to reassure people that we shall look again at this issue."

Writing in the latest issue of parliament magazine, Simon Barber, director of biotech lobby Europabio argues that the slow adoption rate to cultivate biotech crops is hurting EU farmers and consumers.

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