The food and feed chain needs urgent legal certainty, said COCERAL, FEDIOL and FEFAC in a joint statement. The feed, grain and oilseed organizations have called on the European Commission to safeguard vital imports of soybeans, maize and various protein-rich derivatives from the key exporting regions to the EU. By unlocking urgently the EU authorization of eight GM products for import, food and feed processing, the college of Commissioners will provide the necessary legal certainty to food and feed business operators. 

The EU depends for 75% of its needs for protein-rich ingredients for feeding purpose on the global world markets. Some of these GM maize, soy and rapeseed products are already commercialized abroad, others will be harvested and made available in the key exporting regions to the EU as from autumn 2014. Further delays in the EU authorization process may therefore lead to significant shortage and trade disruptions due to unavoidable presence of these GM events in the supply chain of both GM and non-GM material. This would trigger uncertainty on import flows, supply chain disruptions and price hikes for basic food products and major feed ingredients as well as undermine the competitiveness of the EU food, feed and livestock sectors, if a decision is not taken in July 2014. 

The 8 GM products that have been deemed safe by the European Food Safety Authority (ESFA) are: Maize MON 87460, Rapeseed GT 73, Soybean 305423, Soybean MON87708, Soybean MON87705, Soybean BPS-CV127-9, Maize T25 and Cotton T304-40. They have reached the final stage of the risk management process. The decisions for the related EU import authorizations lies in the hands of the EU Commission: some of them have been waited for since the end of 2013.