During the debates yesterday at the European Parliament the rapporteur on the text "Novel foods" revealed a confidential document from the Council's legal service concluding that a restriction on importing food products issuing from animal cloning and their descendants would be compatible with the rules of the WTO.

For Corinne Lepage (France, CAP21) ALDE's shadow rapporteur this is a scandal: "Today we learned that the Council deliberately put aside an internal opinion from the their legal service that would clearly establish that the WTO rules would have permitted traceability and labelling.  Another document mentioned in the plenary debate revealed that labelling exits in the U.S. and leads us to think that the technical constraints would not be insurmountable, as one has tried to make us believe.

Such behaviour is unacceptable.  Not only has the Council chosen the economic interests of a few importers over those of the European consumers, but it has defended a position that it knew was false.

It's a real scandal that can only create more mistrust and euro scepticism."We ask the Commission to present a new proposition on cloning as soon as possible." The negotiations for novel foods legislation failed over the question of cloning in March 2011. While the European Parliament refused to give in on its request for mandatory labelling on foods derived from descendants of cloned animals (meat and milk), the European ministers and the Commission were opposed on the grounds that it was necessary to avoid triggering a trade war and alleged that such labeling would be contrary to WTO rules.