The former chief scientific adviser to the European commission has accused environmental groups of “manufacturing” claims that they knew to be false in a campaign to get her post scrapped.
Prof Anne Glover stood down from the role in January, after groups including Greenpeace successfully lobbied the commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, to abolish the post arguing that it “concentrated too much influence” in one person.
Prof Glover says that, in reality, she was an inconvenience for some NGOs because her support for GM crops clashed with their ideology.
“They portrayed me as this person that was incredibly important and that if I said something the president of the commission would do it,” she told a press conference in London. “They knew it wasn’t the case that I was this all-powerful unelected individual, but it suited their arguments and I didn’t think that was very honest. They didn’t like my position on GM, which is that the scientific consensus is that it’s safe.”
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The NGOs, including Greenpeace, GM Watch and the Pesticide Action Network, wrote an open letter to Juncker in July urging him to abolish the post because it was “unaccountable, intransparent and controversial” and it “undermined in-depth scientific research and assessments carried out by or for the commission”.
Read full, original article: Green groups lied to oust me, says former EC science chief
