Press Releases

Brussels, 7 March 2012 – Secret lobbying by the nuclear industry and an open door at the European Commission have kept nuclear power on the EU’s agenda, despite public concern following the disaster at Fukushima, according to a new report from Corporate Europe Observatory published today, a year after the meltdown at Fukushima in Japan [1].

Thomas Lönngren. Following correspondence with Dr Lönngren, the ALTER-EU press statement of 19 December 2011 has now been amended and the revised statement is available below.

Munich/ Brussels, 8 December 2011: The European Ombudsman has ruled in favour of a complaint filed by Testbiotech against the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) regarding its approach to the 'revolving door'. The case concerns a former senior staff member at EFSA, Dr Suzy Renckens, who was head of the unit responsible for the risk assessment of genetically engineered plants for five years until 2008. Dr Renckens, a Belgian national, then moved to a job at Syngenta, a company that produces and markets these plants.

BRUSSELS – More than half of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) panel responsible for giving the go-ahead for the approval of BASF’s genetically modified (GM) Amflora potato in 2010 had conflicts of interest, according to new research published by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) [1].