madam president i would like to thank the commissioner for the outline of the situation
however i want to concentrate on just one area where we can act and that is the low-level presence of unauthorised gmos in feed imports and its impact on the eu feed industry because this is an over-arching issue
i sent a letter to president barroso signed by a number of meps and he replied that the commission have moved quickly to authorise three modified gm products and a fourth on the way
however we are still playing catch-up
the problem next year will be brazil they have streamlined their approval system down to twenty-two months and the problem will not go away
we are all aware that the agri-sector is beset by low margins and the least i think that eu farmers can expect is that the cost of inputs should not be increased by the failure of the eu to act sufficiently quickly to establish authorisations
it is one thing to have poor output prices but it is a double penalty when inputs are not available at world market prices
in ireland since may of this year the extra cost of delayed authorisations has been eur twenty-three million
finally the issue of low-level presence will always be with us and while speedy functioning of the authorisation system will improve the situation we still need a technical solution
