Risk Regulation, GMOs and the Limits of Deliberation

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the Council of Ministers has been drawn into a political maelstrom - the regulation of genetically modified (GM) foods and crops. Beginning with the 1990 Directive on the Deliberate Release into the Environment of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and proceeding through the growing controversy over GMOs in the 1990s, the unofficial moratorium on the approval of new GM varieties between 1999 and 2004, the ongoing transatlantic dispute over GMOs with the United States, and finally the tentative resumption of approvals initiated in 2004, the Council of Ministers has played a central role in the adoption and implementation of one of the most controversial areas of EU regulation. Throughout this period, the Council has been riven by persistent divisions both among its member governments and between the Council as a body and other institutional actors such as the Commission and the European Parliament (EP), and at the same time by pressures from societal actors in Europe, foreign governments such as that of the United States, and international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO).