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EU May Allow Members Home Rule On GMO Foods
think_nix (1467471) writes The EU Parliament is paving the way for EU Nation States to decide on banning or allowing GMO foods within their respective territories. An further article at Der Spiegel (German) (Google translation) quotes the German Health Minister's claim that if countries cannot specifically, scientifically argue for a ban, this would allow GMO companies to initiate legal actions against the banning ruling states. Furthermore it was noted, given EU Parliaments current stance on not reintroducing border and customs controls between member states, this will make checks and controls of GMO foods between member states even more difficult.
So I should probably be banned from Slashdot.
It assumed a lot of knowledge about how current EU GMO law works. I think that it was saying that currently the EU in Brussels approves GMOs in European agriculture, and then national governments can choose whether to let the crops into their countries. So the EU approved a strain of corn, and something else (it's mentioned in the article), and France/Germany/etc. have said those two crops aren't allowed within their borders. This just gets rid of the EU step. They'll be banned in Berlin and Paris, not Brussels.
The article also mentions that the nations would need a reason to justify banning a GMO, but given that the MEPs quoted were mostly from countries that enthusiastically enforce the ban and nobody was going "hey, but your government will be forced to let GMOs in," I strongly suspect that the list of reasons a state can give for justifying a ban is really long.
And the scientific consensus on GMO safety is as broad and overwhelming as the consensus that man is behind much of the current global warming.
Anti-GMO hysteria is anti-science, plain and simple. It is no different from insisting that CO2 doesn't drive global warming, and no different from saying that vaccines are dangerous because you heard that some kid got autism a few days after being vaccinated.
The EU, by taking this decidedly anti-science stance, is holding back important scientific advances that will be necessary to feed and supply an ever increasing global population.
We should hold anti-GMO zealots with the same disdain as we hold climate change deniers.
The EU is a weird beast. It's got enough power to be a huge pain in the ass, but not enough to actually do anything. The result is it can't adequately respond to challenges (ie: Crimea, the PIIGS debt crisis), but everyone still hates it for cramping their style. It's somewhat analogous to the US Articles of Confederation, except that government had even less power then the EU (it was somewhere between the UN and NATO in it's ability to bully member-states).
In the long term it's probably much better for Europe if Europeans decide to go the route we Americans did, and create a truly Federal state with it's own Army. The economic advantages of national autonomy are irrelevant if the Russians have just conquered half of Poland, all of Belarus, Moldova, etc. If they paid the right bribe to any single EU or NATO member-state (ie: Bulgaria has had it's eye on a small chunk of Romania since WW1) they could paralyze every Europe-wide organization because on any issue that actually matters ALL member-states have a veto.
Europeans are incredibly good at convincing themselves a small (and in the context of a 7-billion-member human race, even Germany is miniscule), wealthy country is a major global player. You can pull that off if you're wealthy enough. If Nigeria, the Chinese, Indians, and a dozen-odd other states all get their economic houses in order you'll all be Luxembourg.
Does it matter that the consensus of scientists and scientific studies is that GMOs are safe? Or is "science" just a rhetorical tool -- a line in a script that the players must speak when they're performing for the crowd, forgotten the next day because there's a new script with new villains?
Personally, I'd say it doesn't matter any more or less for GMOs than for anything else. I support GMOs in general because I support technological progress and individual choice. If individuals or farmers choose GMOs because they think they'll be better off, governments shouldn't stand in the way unless there's a compelling non-FUD, non-bogeyman, non-witch-hunt reason. Same for anything else.
In the long term it's probably much better for Europe if Europeans decide to go the route we Americans did, and create a truly Federal state with it's own Army.
But the EU has been an anti-democratic power for decades, and it seems magic thinking to believe it could evolve in the right direction now. Giving more power to it is an attack on democracy. Giving it an army seems just foolish.
We have at least two of those, a common language and shared history. The language is English, because as much as the French hate it, it is the lingua franca in the EU. The history is one of fighting one another tooth and nail, but it is a long history and most of those wars were about a small handful of elite too.
Is there enough of a shared culture to convince the French to send their sons and daughters to die for the Latvians?
Yes, absolutely. No different to what happens now with NATO.
My argument against a federal EU is from another direction. The USA is too big, and it's politics have become paralyzed by it's size. It might be better off devolving a lot of power to the states.
In the long term it's probably much better for Europe if Europeans decide to go the route we Americans did, and create a truly Federal state with it's own Army.
But the EU has been an anti-democratic power for decades, and it seems magic thinking to believe it could evolve in the right direction now. Giving more power to it is an attack on democracy. Giving it an army seems just foolish.
The previous poster mentioned the US Articles of Confederation (the first attempt at governance after gaining independence) and suggested going the American route. Going the American route would not include keeping the current EU. In this analogy the current EU would be discarded like the Articles of Confederation were and member states would create a new governing body and a new set of rules.
In short, the US didn't evolve from one system to another. We completely thew out the old system, learned from its flaws and started over.
You don't know much American history. As late as the 1860s almost everyone thought of their first allegiance as to their state, rather then the Federal government. Even today there's more difference in the perception of America's shared history and culture between regions of the US then there would be between many pairs of European states. The Low Countries have a lot more in common with each-other then Texas has with Maine, it's the same with Scandinavia, the Deutscher Sprachraum, etc.
As for military spending, you do realize that France and the UK would have a vote on the European defense budget? Combined they'd have a bigger vote then anyone else. And they'd have help from former Warsaw pact members who a) fear Russia, b) would probably disproportionately not pay for the military (because taxes typically hit richer regions harder, and the ex-Warsaw Pact is poor compared to Luxembourg), and c) would receive a disproportionate amount of the benefit (where do you think the front lines would be? Not in Brittany.). Moreover even 1% of EU GDP would be double Russia's current defense spending.
As for "shared culture" being required for people to die for a country, stop reading about 5 years in the 40s. Ethnic Romanian Transylvanians never had a problem dying for an ethnic German or Hungarian King of Hungary ads long as said king acted in what they perceived was a lawful and fair manner. Same with Bohemians and their German nobles, Shleswig and it's Danish King, etc. Conscription could be a problem, but if France joined a European Federation, and said federation went to war over Ukraine, nobody would bat an eye that volunteers in the Federation Armed Forces werer dying for a bunch of Orthodox Slavs.
In the long term it's probably much better for Europe if Europeans decide to go the route we Americans did, and create a truly Federal state with it's own Army.
But the EU has been an anti-democratic power for decades, and it seems magic thinking to believe it could evolve in the right direction now. Giving more power to it is an attack on democracy. Giving it an army seems just foolish.
Problems with democracy in a democratic government are caused by two things: Since the EU is set up by a bunch of democracies, it should fit the pattern. And it does. the problems are:
1) Voters who don't know how they're supposed to do their jobs.
2) Institutions that make it really hard for voters to do their jobs.
1) is difficult to solve. The UK has done things one way for centuries. the voters have gotten very used to Westminster system/responsible government/etc. They can deal with that. Government-by-committee-Northern-European-style in Brussels is something they will not learn how to deal with for a few more decades, especially because of:
2) The system is fucking hard to understand. EU states won't give significant powers to the Parliament, so most actual important decisions are made in closed-door meetings between two-dozen Heads of Government. Instead of a potential Greece bail-out being determined by MEPs using their budget, it's determined at a ridiculous conference where dozens of politicians, many elected specifically because they hate the very idea of having an EU (I'm looking at you True Finns) get to bash the Greeks without actually contributing anything useful.
Then the EU Parliament uses it's miniscule power to tweak some regulation, which screws somebody somewhere in the EU because the EU is a fucking big place, and only true Euro-obsessives understand why any of that shit actually happened.
So let's say you're an Austrian voter, you think the Greek people were lied to by their government, and therefore deserved a slightly better deal at the bail-out. If you were a rational human being you'd assume that meant voting for some Europhile left-wing party in the EU elections, but in reality the EU Parlaiment could not do jack about Greece, so what you actually had to do was vote for the Europhile Left-Winger for Prime Minister.
The EU is here to stay. It's too convenient a scapegoat for politicians who can blame any kind of unpopular policy on it. It goes like this: If you have an unpopular policy to push through, band together with the other EU countries who suffer from the same problem, make it a EU policy, and then you can go home, wring your hands and sigh that you really, really don't want to do that to your people but the EU forces you to.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You'd also have to ask the member states to give up their sovereignty. This wasn't easy even in the case of the US as there were a ton of issues that needed resolving (i.e. balancing power between small and large states.)
This would be incredibly more difficult in the case of Europe since the individual member states have had their own identity often going back two or even three millennia, not only that but what cultural identity would they take? I.e. little things like what common language will they speak? (Granted the US has no official language, but 80% of the population speaks the same one...such is by far not the case in the EU.) Also, I'm having a hard time seeing how e.g. England would agree to it, seeing as they even refuse to adopt the Euro (which it turns out was actually a good idea and worked quite well in their favor) and they don't even drive on the same side of the road as everybody else.
The EU could currently not join itself. It fails the democratic requirements.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In the long term it's probably much better for Europe if Europeans decide to go the route we Americans did, and create a truly Federal state with it's own Army.
Just look at how well creating a strong federal government with a large standing military has worked for the USA! Why, it's practically turned it into a shining beacon of peace, freedom, and international cooperation!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
... Of course, it's not Germany's fault they're so much more productive than the rest of Europe. Ever been to Italy, Greece, or Spain? The "work ethic" in those cultures is utterly foreign to an American, never mind a German ...
Really, my born and raised in Italy and emigrated to the US at age 20 grandfather has a work ethic that a very conservative American would consider exemplary. And Italian culture is not gone from his house as my father and us visiting grandchildren can attest. If you are working hard or studying hard he is kind and generous, slack off and you will hear about it. And the expectation level is not fixed, if you were lucky enough to be stronger or smarter than average then expectation are increased. He runs his house and raised his kids pretty much like his father. When visiting Italy I've seen my 90 year old great-grandfather tending his orchard. When my grandfather says to him, hey your 90 years old, take it easy. My great-grandfather replies that he'll take it easy when he's dead, that working keeps him healthy.
One of my friends growing up, his father was born and raised in Greece. He emigrated to the US in his early 20s also. He seemed to share a work ethic and some other traits with my grandfather. Strict house, exemplary work ethic, generous to family and friends who lived up to his expectations.
Don't confuse culture with the politics of the day. Its a welfare state government not the national culture that screws things up.
You're creating problems that don't exist.
Let's say we create an EU Senate. Have it based in Strassbourg so the MEPs don't have to make that ridiculous trip one month a year. Give it the same language rules as the EU Parliament. We have now solved many of the problems small states would have with this arrangement. Then merge the various treaties governing the EU into a single document, with three changes:
1) The Senate and associated little EU state/big EU state powers are included.
2) EU states give up their sovereignty over foreign policy and military policy. This includes their vote as members of the UN, but they can retain non-voting representatives if they can convince the UN to go along with it.
3) The EU gets the right to tax to pay for the military and foreign policy. This includes procedures for fully integrating dozens of militaries. It also probably includes a specific tax (ie: VAT not to exceed 10%, plus an income tax if approved by 3/4 of the Senate, or whatever).
Everyone passes it as an Amendment to their Constitution. Then you heave EU-wide elections, and the new EU PM is the most powerful person in the world.
I will agree it's highly unlikely that all this would happen. But if it did it would make Europe much less dependent on US Military aid, make Putin much less likely to get frisky, and generally make the entire world a better place.
Roundup is expensive. That is why you're not getting poisoned with it. It's also fairly low on the toxicity scale, but the matter of fact is that it's expensive, so farmers do their damndest to use as little of it as they can. This is why roundup-resistant beans are important; they can wick the beans, lose nothing to the soil or overspray, and kill everything else that's taller than the beans, which is to say, effectively competing with the beans. Without roundup resistant beans, they used a lot more roundup at a different part of the season to kill off everything, and then plant the beans. This is much, much better.
Source: 840 acres in corn and beans
Your government wants Europe to meet the interests of the companies that rule your country. Whether that means a peaceful, stable, boring place or a fascist, military-controlled, or terrorism-ridden state is of secondary importance.
Is that a joke? The "gas deal" certainly provides cheap gas all right - so cheap that there's essentially zero profit in it for Gazprom. It's a real testament to how desperate Russia is to not look like they're dependent on the EU to buy their gas. Check out a map of Russian gas pipelines. Notice the complete lack of any pipelines anywhere near China's major cities. The gas deal leads from an undeveloped field through a nonexistent pipeline through nonexistent processing facilities. The pipeline isn't supposed to come online until 2020, and the main field until 2021. And that's assuming they can actually build it, which given their track record while *not* under sanctions is a big "If". And even if all that transpires, it's still a small fraction of their EU gas exports.
Anyone who actually looks at the "deal" can easily see it was just a PR move.
The concept that Russia can just turn east to China is beset by the fundamental problems that Russia doesn't have infrastructure connecting itself well with China, the vast majority of their people live nowhere near China, the vast majority of their industries are nowhere near China, and so forth. Russia is set up to function as part of Europe. And if it came down to it, does anyone in their right mind think that if the EU and US basically told China "us or them", they'd choose Russia, rather than the vastly larger markets of the US and EU that China's already intensely integrated with?
Not like the "breakup" with Russia would be painless for Europe. They'll be paying higher oil rates and significantly higher gas rates, plus higher rates for a wide variety of raw materials. But the situation is highly lopsided; Russia's GDP is an eighth the size of Europe's, a 16th the size of Europe + US. Whatever reduction in trade that hurts the EU / US hurts them an order of magnitude worse, barring huge multipliers on their part. Their manufacturing sector, in particularly high tech goods, is grossly undersized for the size of their population, and that's very unfortunate because such goods (in particular industrial goods, spare parts, etc) are often not fungible. They're also highly dependent on food imports (at least those are fungible).
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
"Genetic engineering is far less likely to have problematic outcomes"
Hu no. We have even a very well known example of the contrary, of a soja sort stopped because of peanut gene in it generating allergic reaction. Sure it was stopped before commercialization. But this is hardly something you get when splicing. Whereas it is certainly something you have a pay attention for with GMO.
"We have been studying health impacts of GMOs for over 20 years now and so far we can find absolutely none." that's because we are clever enough to test our shit and discard what is dangerous before it is commercialized (see above). That does not mean there is no danger. In fact we have one documented case of problem which is why we test for potential problems.
What you probably meant is "We have been studying health impacts of commercialized GMOs for over 20 years now and so far we can find absolutely none". Which is right. GMO can do a lot of good things for us, but let us not call it "without danger or problem" when there is a documented case of problem, and yes allergic reaction from species from which you do not expect them, IS a problem. (which is why we test for it before commercilization).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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You'd also have to ask the member states to give up their sovereignty. This wasn't easy even in the case of the US as there were a ton of issues that needed resolving (i.e. balancing power between small and large states.)
This would be incredibly more difficult in the case of Europe since the individual member states have had their own identity often going back two or even three millennia, not only that but what cultural identity would they take? I.e. little things like what common language will they speak? (Granted the US has no official language, but 80% of the population speaks the same one...such is by far not the case in the EU.) Also, I'm having a hard time seeing how e.g. England would agree to it, seeing as they even refuse to adopt the Euro (which it turns out was actually a good idea and worked quite well in their favor) and they don't even drive on the same side of the road as everybody else.
There is a large group of nations within the EU that have little problem with increased integration, Britain is in something of a small minority in its anti-EU stance. Until now keeping Britain in the EU has been seen as important and nobody really thought they should leave. Recently, however, the idea has been voiced in other EU countries that the British should just should just bloody leave if they have that stink in their nose rather continue this constant dithering. People are just getting sick of hearing Britain threaten to leave and then never doing anything about it, especially since it usually seems to be a smokescreen to extort special treatment. There is a whole bunch of things that can be done in terms of restructuring the EU if the UK is no longer there fucking things up to get special deals for it's financial industry. If the UK decides to go it will certainly be watched with great interest as they leave the common market, refuses to join the EEZ which is not an option for most of the UK Euro-skeptics/isolationists since it would involve enacting all those hated EU laws without any say in how they are made (a say which the UK currently has as an EU member). Ukip in Britain, the Freedom party in the Netherlands and Front National in France all believe that Europe is better off as a bag of squabbling nation states that Europe was before the EU was set up. The kind of squabbling, feuding bag full of angry weasels that would not have been able to agree on whether or not the Soviet Union was a threat for long enough to even conceive of forming an alliance against the Soviets to prevent them from gobbling Europe up one squabbling state at a time. NATO was only formed as a counterweight against the Soviets after several swift ass-kicks from the Americans and they cannot be counted on to the play the role of the big bad parent forever. So who is right? Is it Ukip and Co. who think they can take Europe back to being a bag of small squabbling nations and still be taken seriously by great powers like China, India, Russia and the USA? Or is it the so called 'federalists' who see increases in political and economic union as the only way to stand up to the big boys? You tell me? Which is more likely to succeed in helping Europe to deal with the Great powers of the 21st century? One big European cat or a group of cute little house-cats? If this reminds you Americans of a debate that took place in the US before the civil war about the pros and cons of increasing Federalism that is no coincidence. The one difference is that I am not nearly as alarmed at the prospect of a European civil war as some of the more delusional Euro skeptic wing nuts who seem to consider a pan European civil war to be just around the corner.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
With millions of EU citizens living across borders, large trade flows and shared environmental and political concerns, getting rid of the EU will mean a new treaty organisation to handle all this stuff. 28x27 bilateral agreements on product standards, fisheries, competition, access to benefits and healthcare, taxation and energy isn't going to work.
There will always be something in the place where the EU is now. At least this one HAS a parliament, unlike the WTO, NATO, etc. Better to make it work.
You clearly do not understand what EU is about. As a policy GM crops fall under Common Agriculture Policy as it is set by the EU member states ministers (along with EU parliament).
The whole thing about GM crops is ridiculous, since all food is in fact GM crop. It has all been modified genetically with selective breeding over a long period of time.
The anti-EU crowd in Europe does not know or have interest in reading history of how Europe was before the invention of EU and its predecessors. All they want is a Europe that doesn't work and would be powerless in today globalized world. Isolated nations in Europe is not good and never has been. EU is the only way, while it is far from perfect it is the only way that seems to work and is going to continue to work.