As a Europe of Values we are committed to ensuring ethics, accountability and transparency as integral parts of all our dealings. Our citizens have challenged us in the field of food production to safe food, with the guarantee of adequate precautions to ensure this goal and proper liability and penalties in place for any violation resulting in damage to the person on the environment. We are presently living with the tragic devastating results of BSE and FMD and there is a consensus in the EU that we must re examine the very basic of our agriculture industry: There is presently a united call for re examination of the CAD and organic food production in being promoted and supported within our institutions. In light of these considerations, I believe the EU must exercise extreme caution in embracing the biotechnology industry without the outmost care and precautions being in place. The US, a front runner in the field of biotech Industry is itself dealing with the difficulties of rapidly progressing GM food production sector where private sector involvement has lead to a market place dominated by global companies and the devastation of small producers who cannot compete with ‘corporate’ farming. The SME's of Agriculture do not appear to have been protected or supported in the world of GM food production. I must vote against the Purvis report on a number of points. I believe that the promise of solving illnesses, increasing yield and cleaning up the environment etc remain to be proven. Indeed in the US, it is my understanding that many GM crops have been shown not to increase yield but even to possibly decrease yield. Widespread genetic engineering of crops and food will surely lead to further intensification of agriculture and what of the health risks from GM products; the EU Commission has banned the use of BST (genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone used to increase milk production in the US) for health reasons. BST is not allowed in any other country apart from the US. There is a documented large increase in allergies to Soya which is now 50% GM. Regarding the suggested lifting of the Moratorium on GM crops, gene transfer is now a proven fact. In my own country of Ireland what hope is there of protected non-GM crops from contamination of this kind? How will we be able to pursue organic food production in crops such as wheat and the cereals? How can we determine if future proposals for labelling and monitoring are adequate when we do not, as yet, know exactly what they are to be? Regarding the Cartagena Protocol, it must be aid that our own European Commission tried to resist clauses to introduce Cartagena into the Directive 90/220. This report unfortunately dismisses organic food, as being at present incapable of providing enough food for Europe as it's not cost effective. Organic producers assure me that they refute this statement. There are many other points including an almost unrestricted Patenting system that force me to vote against this report. Finally, as far as the ethical problems surrounding genetic engineering, the US model we are using as a benchmark has without doubt, led to the breakdown of the protection of the dignity of the human being. We are now faced with some members of our human family being used as objects for research, and the cloning of children at the embryonic stage is imminent within our own European Community.

Political group: PPE-DE