Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission’s positive intention is to tidy up ten directives, the first of which dates from 1966, concerning Community comparative tests and trials for various conventional seeds and propagating material. As the Commission has confirmed over the past twenty-five years, agricultural crops such as cereals, fodder crops, and oilseed and fibre crops have been subject to Community comparative tests on the basis of the applicable legislation. Over the last few years, this exercise has grown in importance following new legislation on the marketing of propagating material of fruit, vegetables and ornamental plants, which lays down detailed rules for implementing the Community comparative tests. This post-control system for seed and propagating material marketed in the Community is recognised as being an extremely important tool for the harmonisation of marketing by Member States. The planned tidying-up exercise, however, would be neither complete nor relevant if the comparative tests funded by the European Union were limited to currently certified seed and plants included in the Union’s common catalogue. The Commission’s proposal must take into account the recently adopted legislative provisions in the area of processed products, as regards the adventitious or technically unavoidable presence of genetically modified seed in conventional varieties of seed. Moreover, it seems to me that in order to update these directives properly three objectives have to be achieved. First of all the proposal must cover all existing seed, so as to have a complete range which takes into account, in addition to traditional seed, the special requirements of biodiversity, and the effects of introducing biotechnology via GMOs. Secondly, it must include within its scope the so-called ‘amateur’ varieties, covered by Directive 98/95, which is still not taken into account by all Member States. Thirdly, for the sake of democracy, it must enable Parliament to be involved in the decision-making process right the way through from beginning to end. In this sense, the sensitive issue of the risk of contamination of traditional seed by GMOs must be included in the series of directives concerning the marketing of seed with which we are dealing here today. This issue cannot be dealt with by the committee procedure, because that would exclude Members of the European Parliament from the debate and prevent them from making proposals on this subject. If I may return briefly to my first point, the comparative tests funded by the European Union should not be limited to the species included in the common catalogue. Conservation varieties and seed originating in organic farming should benefit from these tests. They have to be tested in conditions which correspond to these farming systems and they therefore require more funding. It should be pointed out such seed is not allowed to be coated and must be absolutely free from any trace of GMOs. Tests of the same type are necessary for plants at risk of GMO contamination. In effect, this proposal for a directive provides an opportunity to settle issues regarding the proven presence of genetically modified seed in conventional seed. The Commission has been working for some considerable time on a directive which would legislate on additional conditions and requirements regarding the presence of genetically modified seed in batches of seed, planting sites, and details of the marking of such seed. Unfortunately, the draft of the latest directive does not sufficiently take into account Directive 2001/18 on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms, which has come into force in the meantime. To come back to my second point, it is important that the conservation species and varieties referred to in Directive 98/95 should be defined and tested for marketing in accordance with special criteria, and that will require an implementing regulation, something which we are still waiting for. In the same way, farm-saved seed or seed of local origin ought to be able to benefit from special flexibility and should be the subject of special contracts linked to Directive 98/95. When it comes to my third point, this is where the democratic debate plays an important role. In the modified articles it is important to decline, as I have tried to do, to make any reference to precise traceability. It is therefore important to say, for each type of seed individually, that if accidental or technically unavoidable traces of GMOs are present in that seed, it is possible to set a threshold level, below which the seed can nonetheless be placed on the market. The level of that threshold should be established in accordance with Article 21 and set at the lowest possible level allowed in accordance with state-of-the-art scientific knowledge. Moreover, appropriate measures must be taken during the transport and storage of traditional seed, so that the accidental or technically unavoidable nature of any GMO pollution can be proved. In fact, although the directive already lays down that genetically modified seed must be labelled, it does not provide a solution to the problem of the risk of traces in traditional seeds, the rule being that such seed must not, in principle, contain any GMOs. This rule is extremely important to farming, because the spread of contaminated seed may have unforeseeable economic consequences, both for farmers and for food producers. Finally, the directive already lays down that the Community may make a financial contribution to the carrying out of the tests laid down in Paragraphs 1 and 2. The same treatment should be possible for the special comparative tests needed for seed and plants produced and cultivated for organic farming and for the utilisation and conservation of genetic diversity in plants. For the sake of transparency, therefore, it will be necessary in future to establish a clear legal basis for a financial contribution, of whatever kind, and it is therefore necessary to make provision for Community financial measures which will be applicable to these comparative tests and which will include the necessary obligatory Community budget expenditure.

Political group: Verts-ALE