Parliament calls for EU ban on cloning for food

Dutch MEP Kartika Liotard (European United Left-Nordic Green Left), who steered the novel foods regulation through Parliament, said "a clear majority in the European Parliament supports ethical objections to the industrial production of cloned meat for food".

"Cloned animals suffer disproportionately highly from illnesses, malformations and premature death. MEPs have been calling for proper regulation for years: it's high time the Commission listened to the European Parliament and citizens on this issue."

Citing the results of a 2008 Eurobarometer, which showed that a majority of EU citizens are not willing to accept animal cloning for food production, Liotard said that "the Commission can no longer ignore the will of the majority of citizens".

"We will continue to press the Commission to produce a separate legislative proposal to prohibit food from clones and their offspring in order to protect consumers and uphold environmental and animal health standards," she added.

French MEP Corinne Lepage (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) added that "although no safety concerns have been identified so far with meat produced from cloned animals, this technique raises serious issues about animal welfare and reduction of biodiversity, as well as ethical concerns".

Scottish Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson welcomed the vote to ban imported foods from cloned animals and their immediate descendants from entering the EU food chain.

In a press statement he noted that current EU rules state that only third-generation or later offspring from cloned animals can be sold for food, but that "no such rules apply" in countries like America, Canada, Argentina and Brazil, which are major exporters of beef and semen to the EU and where "cloning is widespread and unregulated".

"I have no wish to trigger a trade war with any countries outside the EU, but they have to realise that their exports must comply with the same standards we apply to our own home-grown products. There must be a level playing field. If there is no scientific test available to test for cloned meat then all imports should be clearly labelled 'This meat may have come from a cloned animal'. This would enable EU consumers to make their own choice on what to buy," Stevenson added.

The Eurogroup for Animals, which represents European animal welfare organisations, welcomed the vote in favour of a ban on cloning animals for food, which it believes will put "immense pressure on the European Commission to come forward with clear legislation to enforce such a ban and ensure that no products from cloned animals or their offspring are put on the European market".

In addition to causing unnecessary animal suffering and treating farm animals as mere "commodities rather than sentient beings," the group argues that widespread use of cloning would also "greatly reduce genetic diversity within livestock populations, increasing the chances of whole herds being wiped out by disease to which they would all be equally susceptible".

In addition, cloning of farm animals would undermine EU subsidies to farmers who conserve traditional breeds of livestock and go against the EU's rural development objective of preserving the genetic diversity of farm animals, it said.

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) welcomed the Parliament's backing for "strong safety and labelling measures for food containing nanomaterials," as well as the moratorium.