European Parliament Approves Amendments on Nano Food, Cloned Animal Food
On July 7, 2010, Members of the European Parliament voted to approve a number of amendments with respect to the European Union’s “novel food” regulations. Some of the amendments focus on Parliament’s concerns over foods that use nanotechnology or that are from cloned animals.
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These amendments will not become law without European Council approval.
(Novel foods are foods and food ingredients that have not been used for human consumption to a significant degree within the European Community before May 15, 1997.1)
Parliament Votes to Exclude Cloned Food as “Novel Food,” Seeks Ban Instead
Currently, there are no EU rules to specifically allow or ban dairy products and meat from cloned animals. The European Commission and Council have expressed their desire to regulate such products under the EU’s “novel foods” rules1, but the Parliament has now voted to exclude them from those rules.
Instead, they have called for separate EU legislation to expressly prohibit foods from cloned animals and their descendants, with a moratorium on their sale in the meantime.
Parliament Votes to Regulate Nano Food as “Novel Food”, Seeks Moratorium
The Parliament agreed (with the EC and Council) that nano-sized ingredients and food from nanotech processes should be subject to novel foods regulations.
They furthermore called for a moratorium until specifically-designed risk assessment of nanotechnology processes or nano-ingredients can prove them to be safe, expressing concerns that nanotechnology is already being used in food and food packaging.
(A majority of Members rejected an amendment calling for compulsory labeling of food products that derive from animals raised on genetically-modified feed.)
Parliament and EU Council Must Agree to Establish Regulations
The EU Council must accept the European Parliament’s vote, or an agreement on how to regulate foods from cloned animals and foods using nanotechnology will be sought through the conciliation procedure.
(If the conciliation procedure applies, the Conciliation Committee has to be convened within 6-8 weeks after the Council's second reading. The Committee then has 6-8 weeks to draw up a 'joint text' from the date of its first meeting for approval by the Parliament and the Council.
If the Committee does not reach an agreement or if the 'joint text' is not approved by the Parliament or the Council, the act is deemed not to have been adopted.)
(Press release dated 07/07/10)
1Regulation EC 258/97 of the European Parliament and the Council lays out detailed rules for the authorization of novel foods and novel food ingredients. These foods need EU-level approval to be placed on the market.
(Press release, dated 07/07/10, available here.)