Following a near unanimous decision by experts sitting on the bloc’s food safety committee, Europe will now require 100 percent of all consignments of rice originating in China to be certified as meeting EU standards.
Until now, whenever China submitted analytical reports to the EU showing that a shipment was GM free, the bloc has performed only random spot checks on consignments to verify these reports.
But in 2010, the EU’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed – the border control warning system – issued 47 alerts over the presence of GM rice in Chinese imports.
Currently, no GM rice products are authorised in the EU, and some of the alerts involve GM rice products that are not authorised in China itself.
The problem dates back some time, with the commission adopting an emergency measure in 2008 to impose controls on Chinese rice products entering the union.
All representatives of member states on the food safety committee apart from one approved the tougher measures on Tuesday. No unanimity is required to pass the measure. The new controls will be reviewed in six months.
However, the urgency of the EU manoeuvre contrasts with the scale of the China-Europe rice trade. The Middle Kingdom only exports some €50-55 million worth of rice products to the EU every year, equivalent to around 50,000 tonnes, according to the commission.