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GMO Food Products - The issue of marketing and selling them in Europe.

King, Shane (2006)
Department of Business Administration
Abstract
Title: GMO Food Products
The issue of marketing and selling them in Europe - A Business and Legal Perspective.
Author: Shane King
Supervisors: Anneli Carlsson and Ewa Rabinowicz
Problem
The European Unions regulations in regard to GMO’s and the approval process for both release into the environment, and onto the market, has been under fire by the USA along with Canada and Argentina. The WTO has ruled on this issue in favour of USA et al.
The problem that was identified was in regard to consumer opinion in the EU. How could the EU meet its numerous international trade obligations while at the same time meeting
the needs of the citizens of the Union? Added to that was the issue of whether or not the
“EU” perspective was indeed an EU... (More)
Title: GMO Food Products
The issue of marketing and selling them in Europe - A Business and Legal Perspective.
Author: Shane King
Supervisors: Anneli Carlsson and Ewa Rabinowicz
Problem
The European Unions regulations in regard to GMO’s and the approval process for both release into the environment, and onto the market, has been under fire by the USA along with Canada and Argentina. The WTO has ruled on this issue in favour of USA et al.
The problem that was identified was in regard to consumer opinion in the EU. How could the EU meet its numerous international trade obligations while at the same time meeting
the needs of the citizens of the Union? Added to that was the issue of whether or not the
“EU” perspective was indeed an EU perspective or rather the perspective of a few
Member States. Thus, is culture and influence on consumer choices about GM food
products when all other factors remain the same? Or is there a common European
opinion on this issue.
In order to bring the two issues together a further question was added with regard to how
the political legal environment can enable the EU and consumers to make choices that
they are content with regarding the GM food issue.
Further to that, despite the WTO ruling, bans on certain GMO’s that are approved by the
EU remain in some Member States. How does the legal environment of the EU cope with
this when the principles of Free Movement are taken into consideration?
Purpose
The purpose was to show that this is an issue that Europeans agree on and that the
regulatory environment can be used to protect consumers without protecting markets. It
can be seen that by allowing the market to function freely, that consumer choice has
power that politicians do not. The restraining nature of the international legal environment
has tied the hands of the EU on this issue. Consumers however still have the ability to
choose what they purchase where they are given adequate information. There are
examples where this has already caused some companies to change the way they do
business.
Method
Research into how the legal environment has enabled the present situation to arise was
undertaken as was an analysis as to how some Member States of the EU have managed
to keep national bans despite the WTO ruling.
Research into cultural factors in individual nations within the EU was undertaken using
the theories of both Geert Hofsted and Kalle Sudhir this was compared to an empirical
study of consumer attitudes and existing research from both the EU and Maria
Magnusson at Uppsala University to see if there was a relationship between culture and
attitudes towards GMO.
Conclusion
Both the international legal environment and that of the EU makes the long term banning
of GMO unlikely within the EU. The “outs” provided from approval are temporary where
scientific evidence is not able to be provided. The way that governments and the EU can
legally ensure that citizens can eat GM free food is to provide them with information so
that they can decide for themselves. One simple way, and the route that the EU has
taken, is through labelling. By in large the study showed that European consumers are
overwhelmingly against GM food. There are cases where they consider eating such
products but this is based on a cost benefit analysis. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
King, Shane
supervisor
organization
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
MEA, Management of enterprises, Företagsledning, management
language
Swedish
id
1351503
date added to LUP
2006-06-01 00:00:00
date last changed
2012-04-02 16:14:49
@misc{1351503,
  abstract     = {{Title: GMO Food Products
The issue of marketing and selling them in Europe - A Business and Legal Perspective.
Author: Shane King
Supervisors: Anneli Carlsson and Ewa Rabinowicz
Problem
The European Unions regulations in regard to GMO’s and the approval process for both release into the environment, and onto the market, has been under fire by the USA along with Canada and Argentina. The WTO has ruled on this issue in favour of USA et al.
The problem that was identified was in regard to consumer opinion in the EU. How could the EU meet its numerous international trade obligations while at the same time meeting
the needs of the citizens of the Union? Added to that was the issue of whether or not the
“EU” perspective was indeed an EU perspective or rather the perspective of a few
Member States. Thus, is culture and influence on consumer choices about GM food
products when all other factors remain the same? Or is there a common European
opinion on this issue.
In order to bring the two issues together a further question was added with regard to how
the political legal environment can enable the EU and consumers to make choices that
they are content with regarding the GM food issue.
Further to that, despite the WTO ruling, bans on certain GMO’s that are approved by the
EU remain in some Member States. How does the legal environment of the EU cope with
this when the principles of Free Movement are taken into consideration?
Purpose
The purpose was to show that this is an issue that Europeans agree on and that the
regulatory environment can be used to protect consumers without protecting markets. It
can be seen that by allowing the market to function freely, that consumer choice has
power that politicians do not. The restraining nature of the international legal environment
has tied the hands of the EU on this issue. Consumers however still have the ability to
choose what they purchase where they are given adequate information. There are
examples where this has already caused some companies to change the way they do
business.
Method
Research into how the legal environment has enabled the present situation to arise was
undertaken as was an analysis as to how some Member States of the EU have managed
to keep national bans despite the WTO ruling.
Research into cultural factors in individual nations within the EU was undertaken using
the theories of both Geert Hofsted and Kalle Sudhir this was compared to an empirical
study of consumer attitudes and existing research from both the EU and Maria
Magnusson at Uppsala University to see if there was a relationship between culture and
attitudes towards GMO.
Conclusion
Both the international legal environment and that of the EU makes the long term banning
of GMO unlikely within the EU. The “outs” provided from approval are temporary where
scientific evidence is not able to be provided. The way that governments and the EU can
legally ensure that citizens can eat GM free food is to provide them with information so
that they can decide for themselves. One simple way, and the route that the EU has
taken, is through labelling. By in large the study showed that European consumers are
overwhelmingly against GM food. There are cases where they consider eating such
products but this is based on a cost benefit analysis.}},
  author       = {{King, Shane}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{GMO Food Products - The issue of marketing and selling them in Europe.}},
  year         = {{2006}},
}