The proposal adopted on 22 April by the European Commission which allows Member States to ban food and feed use of EU authorised GM crops has the potential to trigger a meltdown of the European livestock economy with massive job losses and a complete brake to investments.
COCERAL, FEDIOL and FEFAC representing commodity trade, oil crushing and compound feed manufacturing call on the EU Council and the European Parliament to block any political agreement on the Commission’s proposal which will “bust” the Internal Market for feed, food and livestock products. Any application of the envisaged GM crop use ban by Member States would lead to an irreversible loss of competitiveness in the EU livestock sector, thus destroying hundred thousands of jobs, due to farm foreclosures and shutdown of processing plants mostly in rural areas with limited job alternatives.
The EU depends for 75% of its needs for protein-rich ingredients for feeding purposes on the global world markets, with soybean meal accounting for 30 – 35 million tons annually, as the most important protein-rich feed ingredient, with no viable alternative.
FEFAC President Ruud Tijssens highlighted that “EU livestock farmers in “opt-out” countries will be the first victims of the new proposal by facing significant cost increases when losing access to vital imports of protein-rich ingredients”.
FEDIOL President Kevin Brassington stated that ”The proposal is harmful not only to business, but to Europe. We fail to understand how a draft law with such far reaching implications can be issued without any prior analysis of its potential damage to both the industry and the internal market.”
COCERAL President Paul Della Tolla stressed that “instead of guaranteeing legal certainty to operators and the right to choose for farmers and consumers, the Commission is destroying the most valuable asset of its common policy, the single market, which has provided jobs & prosperity to millions of EU citizens”.
COCERAL, FEDIOL and FEFAC therefore condemn the European Commission’s move to push through the proposal without having performed any economic impact assessment and consultation of food and feed chain partners. This is a blatant violation of the new Commission’s ambition to create “better regulation” and to provide more transparency in the legislative process.