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Shackles for Bees? The ECJ's Judgment on GMO-Contaminated Honey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Matthias Lamping
Matthias Lamping*
Affiliation:
Max Plank Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law,
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Abstract

Case C-442/09, Bablok and Others (not yet reported)

An old German proverb says: What the farmer doesn't know he doesn't eat. In the case of the Bablok decision delivered by the European Court of Justice on 6 September 2011, it is not the farmers, but the judges who seem to be wary about the unknown. According to their judgement, substances derived from genetically modified plants require market authorisation to be placed on the market as food, even if the substance itself is not fertile anymore. Since the Court takes the view that pollen is an ingredient of honey rather than a natural component, honey contaminated with pollen from genetically modified organisms will fall within the classification of foodstuffs requiring marketing authorisation. So whenever a bee collects pollen from a genetically modified plant, this can make the entire honey harvest unmarketable. Not even the slightest contamination will be tolerated, irrespective of whether it was intentional. Because the prohibition to put unauthorised honey on the market applies abstractly, regardless of whether there is a concrete risk for the health of consumers, the judgement will have considerable impact on the coexistence of conventional, ecological and genetically-modified farming.

Type
Case Notes
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 123 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 Directive 2001/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 March 2001 on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms, OJ 2001, L 106/1.

2 Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2003 on genetically modified food and feed, OJ 2003, L 268/1.

3 Regulation (EC) No 258/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 January 1997 concerning novel foods and novel food ingredients, OJ 1997, L 43/1.

4 See <http://ec.europa.eu/food/dyna/gm_register/index_en.cfm> (last accessed on 18 January 2012).

5 See SpiegelOnline International, “Germany Bans Cultivation of GM Corn”, 14 April 2009, available on the Internet at <http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,618913,00.html> (last accessed 18 January 2012).

6 See Article 2(1) and (2) of Directive 2001/18 and Articles 2.4 and 2.5 of Regulation No 1829/2003, which refer to the definition given in the Directive.

7 ECJ C-442/09, Bablok and Others, para. 55.

8 Ibid., para. 62.

9 Ibid., para. 60.

10 Ibid., para. 61.

11 Ibid., para. 56.

12 Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety, OJ 2002, L 31/1

13 Directive 2000/13/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 March 2000 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs, OJ 2000, L 109/29.

14 ECJ C-442/09, Bablok and Others, para. 71.

15 Council Directive 2001/110/EC of 20 December 2001 relating to honey, OJ 2002, L 10/47.

16 ECJ C-442/09, Bablok and Others, paras. 76–77.

17 Ibid., paras. 74 and 78.

18 Ibid., para. 80. The Commission substantiates this conclusion by referring to recital 16 of the Preamble to the Regulation, according to which “products obtained from animals fed with genetically modified feed or treated with genetically modified medicinal products will be subject neither to the authorisation requirements nor to the labelling requirements referred to in the Regulation”. The Commission infers from this that foods of animal origin may be considered to be produced from a GMO only if the animal itself has been genetically modified.

19 Ibid., para. 81.

20 Ibid., paras. 82–83.

21 Ibid., paras. 87 to 89.

22 Ibid., para. 94

23 Ibid., paras. 95 to 100.

24 Ibid., para. 101.

25 Ibid., para. 102.

26 Ibid., paras. 107 and 108.

27 Ibid., para. 103.

28 See Bund für Lebensmittelrecht und Lebensmittelkunde e.V., „Stellungnahme zur Anwendbarkeit der VO (EG) Nr. 1829/2003 auf Honig”, ZLR (2011), at p. 515; Ternes, Waldemar, Täufel, Alfred, Tunger, Liselotte and Zobel, Martin, Lebensmittelrecht-Lexikon 2008 (Hamburg: Behr's 2008), at p. 804 Google Scholar; Lipp, Josef, Handbuch der Bienenkunde (Stuttgart: Ulmer 1994), at p. 46 Google Scholar; Teufer, Tobias, „Honig, Pollen und der Anwendungsbereich der Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1829/2003”, ZLR (2011), at p. 198 Google Scholar.

29 See Beckh, Gudrun and Camps, Gregor, „Neue Spezifikationen für Trachthonige”, Deutsche Lebensmittelrundschau (2009), at p. 107 Google Scholar; Teufer, Tobias, „Honig, Pollen und der Anwendungsbereich der Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1829/2003”, ZLR (2011), at p. 198 Google Scholar.

30 Annex II of Directive 2001/110 also seems to differentiate between solid particles derived from honey collection, such as pollens, and food ingredients.

31 See Hagenmeyer, Moritz, „Case Note – ECJ ignores EU Law in Honey/Pollen Case”, 6 EFFL (2011), p. 292 et sqq. Google Scholar; Teufer, Tobias, “Honig, Pollen und der Anwendungsbereich der Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1829/2003”, ZLR (2011), p. 196 et sqq Google Scholar.

32 See Leible, Stefan, „Die Kennzeichnung von mit Hilfe gentechnischer Verfahren hergestellter Lebensmittel”, ZLR (2011), p. 13 et sqq Google Scholar.

33 See for instance Walter Zipfel and Kurt-Dietrich Rathke, Lebensmittelrecht (München: Beck 2011), C 110, § 5 LMKV, para. 3; Moritz Hagenmeyer, LMKV-Kommentar (München: Beck 2006), § 5 LMKV, para. 4.

34 See Bund für Lebensmittelrecht und Lebensmittelkunde e.V., „Stellungnahme zur Anwendbarkeit der VO (EG) Nr. 1829/2003 auf Honig”, ZLR (2011), p. 513 et sqq.

35 Hagenmeyer, Moritz, “Case Note – ECJ ignores EU Law in Honey/Pollen Case”, 5 EFFL (2011), at p. 291 Google Scholar.

36 See Bund für Lebensmittelrecht und Lebensmittelkunde e.V., „Stellungnahme zur Anwendbarkeit der VO (EG) Nr. 1829/2003 auf Honig”, ZLR (2011), at p. 513; Tobias Teufer, „Honig, Pollen und der Anwendungsbereich der Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1829/2003”, ZLR (2011), at p. 200.

37 Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, OJ 2011, L 304/18.