The European Commission has rejected an MEP’s call for tighter regulations on lab-grown meat.
Eurocrats have dismissed researchers’ suggestions that a review of existing legislation is needed.
“The ‘novel foods’ Regulation has been designed to support innovation and aims to address possible safety concerns in a number of innovative food or food production techniques, including for cell-based products,” EC Vice-President Margrethe Vestager wrote in response to a European Parliamentary question on the topic.
“The Commission thus considers that the current rules are sufficient to make well-informed decisions on the authorisation of lab-grown meat production,” she added.
In her response to the query, submitted by Italian Lega MEP Alessandra Basso, Vestager also waved away concerns that lab-grown meat produces more CO2 emissions than traditional farming methods.
Basso claimed recently published research showed that artificial meat can have a carbon footprint between four and 25 times higher than traditionally produced meat, citing a paper penned by researchers at University of California, Davis.
“Depending on the parameters considered, different studies can lead to diverging conclusions,” Vestager retorted, arguing that the benefits of lab-grown meat in the fight against climate change have yet to be “clearly defined”.
“The Commission supports research to improve knowledge in this area,” she said.
Vestager’s rejection of tighter EU regulation comes after the EC faced similar controversy on the topic of insects in food products.
Despite numerous calls for action, the Brussels executive rejected demands to establish clear bug-labelling regulations.
“The Commission is not currently considering additional labelling requirements for foods containing insects, since the existing legal framework ensures that consumers are informed about the content of the food,” the EC said in a response to critics.
Charlie Weimers, an MEP for the Sweden Democrats party, attacked that response as “disingenuous”.
“Many people feel queasy about eating insects and bugs, and I sympathise with that,” he said.
“Not everything should be normalised. Food that contains arthropods should have a clear and visible marker on the front so that consumers can make a conscious decision.”
