Now here’s an interesting one. A British minister gets it in the neck for standing up to Europe.
This is not a normal scenario but such was the lot of Caroline Spelman.
Her problem was that she had the gall to say no to the European Parliament over an issue upon which the opinion polls and the tabloids sided with the MEPs.
Or to be honest, it was more a case of the MEPs who were siding with the opinion polls and the newspapers.
The whole saga centred on the issue of cloned food.
Should food made from the offspring of cloned animals be banned? And if not should it be clearly labelled?
We could debate the answers to those questions interminably but one riveting angle to last week’s cloned meat bust-up was how it demonstrated where power lies in today’s society.
This was an issue to be decided at EU level. Why? Because cloning animals for food is a farming issue and the EU has run a common agriculturalpolicy since the year dot.
In addition, it also agrees on common labelling of food products to ensure coherence for the consumers and that the member states act together on international trade. Key exporters to the EU such as the United States are happy cloners.
So who were the actual decision-makers? It was not the unelected European Commission but the very much elected national governments, who sit in the Councils of Ministers, and the equally elected European Parliament.
These two groups of democratically elected politicians had to agree, jointly, what the blazes to do.
The problem was that they couldn’t agree. Or at least they reached partial agreement but there were areas they failed to resolve.
Everybody went along with maintaining the line that anyone wishing to sell food from cloned animals would have to seek permission first.
The sticking point was what to do with the food made from the offspring of cloned animals.
The European Parliament wanted those foods banned and failing that, as Plan B, it wanted them clearly labelled.
In so doing, the MEPs were being driven by repeated opinion polls that show that consumers are opposed to cloned meat and/or want it labelled.
Ranged against the European Parliament were the national governments.
Representing the UK was Mrs Spelman whose background in the biotech industry means that she is personally pretty relaxed about genetically modified crops and cloned animals.
The Governments were focusing less on the opinion polls and more upon the science their advisors were providing them.
The UK’s own Food Standards Agency has said that independent scientists have shown that there is no difference between the offspring of cloned animals and non-cloned animals.
Consequently, in the minds of ministers, cloned meats pose no dangers to health.
In which case, why is it necessary to impose the extra cost of labelling them? Indeed the ministers were arguing that the EP’s demands were impractical.
How, they wanted to know, could you provide a family tree for every slice of salami or chunk of cheese? These days most of the EU’s big decisions have to be taken jointly by the national governments and the European Parliament.
The cloned meat row was only the second time ever they have failed to resolve matters. The working time directive was the first.
As a result of the deadlock, nothing is going to happen. Which means the national governments get their way.
There will be no regulations to cover food produced from the offspring of cloned animals.
From this, can we conclude it is: National Governments, 1, European Parliament 0? Perhaps. But within 24 hours of the breakdown in talks, newspapers were contacting major British retailers, all of whom were saying they would not stock cloned meat as long as public opinion was against it.
If the retailers won’t buy it, is the answer then: Public Opinion 1, National Governments 0? But then again, if the goods aren’t labelled, how will the retailers know? I leave you with this thought. Currently the EU imports between 300,000 to 500,000 tonnes of cloned meat a year. Game to Mrs Spelman.
‘The cloned meat bust-up demonstrated where power lies in today’s society’
