EU institutions clash over animal cloning regulations
Only days left to break the cloning deadlock, while MEPs demand ban on food from offspring of clones.
Last-ditch talks on how the European Union regulates animal cloning are at risk of collapse.
MEPs look set for a bruising confrontation with member states and the European Commission when the EU institutions gather on Monday night (28 March) in an attempt to fix rules on animal cloning – the process of making genetic copies.
This is the final chance to break the deadlock, as EU rules require that talks must be wound up by 29 March, exactly eight weeks after the arbitration process began.
Positions remained entrenched when the most recent talks broke up last week (17 March). The European Parliament continues to press for a ban on meat and milk from cloned animals and their descendants. Member states and the Commission support a ban on food derived from first-generation clones, but they insist it would be impossible to extend this to food from clones’ offspring. National governments are especially worried about onerous rules that would be difficult to enforce, and the Commission fears retaliation from the EU’s trading partners, as a ban on progeny would attract criticism under international trade rules.
Recriminations were flying after the last meeting, which finished at 4am without agreement. It is “incredible that the Council is willing to run a blind eye to public opinion, as well as the ethical and animal welfare problems associated with cloning”, said the Parliament’s lead negotiators, Italian Socialist MEP Gianni Pittella and Dutch hard-left MEP Kartika Liotard, after the talks.
This brought a rapid retort from a spokesperson for Hungary, the current holder of the rotating presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers. “The position of the European Parliament would require drawing a family tree for each slice of cheese or salami, which is practically impossible, would be misleading for consumers and create horrendous extra cost for farmers,” the spokesperson said.
No compromise
No appetite for compromise was evident as the EU institutions went into a preparatory meeting last night (23 March). A Parliament source said that the Council did not want to move at all, adding that the Parliament’s views on banning products from clones’ offspring were “not something that can be dropped lightly”.
In contrast, a source in another institution said that the Parliament’s intransigence meant that the EU risked “missing an opportunity” to regulate cloning while the technique is still fairly new. “Is it worth making conciliation fail because some parties involved did not get everything they wanted, or is it worth taking a small step?” the source asked.
All sides are bracing themselves for failure, with comparisons already being drawn with the collapse of talks on the working-time directive in 2009. A breakdown in talks would mean losing three years of work on the ‘novel foods’ draft regulation – proposals to amend a 1997 law that lays ground rules for authorising new and unusual foods for sale in the EU.
Danish ban
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But the collapse of talks would not open the door to ‘clone food’. Denmark has completely banned animal cloning for commercial reasons. And across the EU, any food derived from cloned animals must be approved under the 1997 regulation – although that does not apply to food from descendants of cloned animals.
European Food Safety Authority, the EU’s Parma-based food-science advisory service, has judged that meat and milk derived from cloned animals would be safe to consume, but raised concerns about animal welfare. An EU ethics panel has concluded that producing food from cloned animals could not be justified.