Forced Cultivation of MON 810
Dossier on the European Commission's proposal to force France, Hungary, Austria and Greece to allow the cultivation of MON 810
The European Commission has submitted draft decisions to order the waiving of national bans in Hungary, Austria, France and Greece on the cultivation of Monsanto's genetically engineered maize variety "Mon 810". The proposed decisions can only be overruled by the Council, if a qualified majority (255 out of 345 ) votes against them.
First vote in Council of Ministers won!
With a bold and qualified majority of 282 votes 22 of 27 Member States have rejected the EU Commission's proposal to force the waiving of the bans in Austria and Hungary of Monsanto's Mon810. Only Great Britain, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and Estonia supported the Commission's proposal in the Council of Ministers on Monday, March 2nd in Brussels.
Against the the Commission proposal and in favour of Hungary and Austria: Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain (282, 22 countries)
In favour of the Commission proposal and against Hungary and Austria: Estonia, Finland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sweden (63, 5 countries).
Action
Ask your governnemt to vote against the Commission's proposals, should they not intend to do so yet.
Ask your government to approach other governments, if they already intend to vote against the proposals.
Legal Procedure
How can 91 out of 345 votes be sufficient to force a decision upon the remaining 254 votes? Once the EU Commission has adopted a proposal, it is forwarded to a Standing Committee of the Member State representatives. Should this Committee approve the Commission's proposal by a two-thirds majority vote (distributed among the 27 Member States proportional to their number of citizens) the proposal is adopted. Should the Committee fail to agree with a 2/3 majority, the proposal must be submitted to the Council of Ministers. The Council however, can only overrule the Commission's proposal with a two-thirds majority. Should it fail to do so (which has been the case for all GMO approvals so far) the Commission can decide on its own. That's EU democracy - also known as "comitology".
Below is a list of the different Member States' number of votes:
AT Austria 10, BE Belgium 12, BG Bulgaria 10, CY Cyprus 4, CZ Czech Republic 12, DK Denmark 7, EE Estonia 4, FI Finland 7, FR France 29, DE Germany 29, EL Greece 12, HU Hungary 12, IE Ireland 7, IT Italy 29, LV Latvia 4, LT Lithuania 7, LU Luxembourg 4, MT Malta 3, NL Netherlands 13, PL Poland 27, PT Portugal 12, RO Romania 14, SK Slovakia 7, SI Slovenia 4, ES Spain 27, SE Sweden 10, UK United Kingdom 29, TOTAL VOTES 345, Qualified majority: 255, Blocking minority: 91
