Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 7 • Number 17 • 5th October 2007

Further ‘Rubber Stamp’ GMO Approvals in the Pipeline in Europe

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Reflecting wide-spread mistrust of genetically engineered farm and food products in Europe, EU agriculture ministers failed once again on 26 September to muster the qualified majority required for the authorisation of three strains of genetically modified (GM) maize found safe by the European Food Safety Authority. Austria, Malta, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg reportedly voted against the authorisations, while France and Italy abstained, ensuring a deadlock. Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden voted in favour of the approval of the three GMOs for processing, food and feed uses. The approval request excluded cultivation.

The continued stalemate means that the final decision will be taken by the European Commission later this year. The Commissions is expected to issue a “rubberstamp” authorisation in accordance with EU legal procedures. In practice, this means that a ten-year default approval for the three strains of maize will be issued within the next few weeks. So far, every EU-wide GMO marketing authorisation granted since the approval process resumed in 2004 has been made by the Commission after member states failed to reach a decision. Luxembourg, Greece and Austria have been among those consistently voting against GMO approvals.

In addition to the GM maize approvals, the EU Commission is also expected to authorise a GM potato developed by German chemicals group BASF. The application has triggered controversy among European consumers. If the Commission approves it, the biotech potato, engineered to yield high amounts of starch, will be the first biotech product to be passed since 1998 that is designed to be cultivated in Europe. It is not intended for human consumption but rather for use in industries such as paper-making. BASF has made a separate EU application for the same potato under a different legal process to use its pulp, known commercially as Amflora, as animal feed.

In related news, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on 13 September overturned a blanket ban on the cultivation of GMOs in Upper Austria. The decision dealt a blow to the region, which sees itself as a pioneer of GM-free farming, with broad popular support. The European Commission had already condemned the ban in 2003, and again in 2005. The ECJ noted that Austria had not been able to refute the Commission’s argument that the ban could not be justified by new and ‘uniquely local’ scientific evidence. It also ruled that governments had no right to deprive individual farmers of the choice to grow biotech crops approved for commercial cultivation in the EU. With the ECJ’s rejection of Austria’s appeal, the region has exhausted all legal avenues to keep its total cultivation prohibition in place. However, uncontested precautionary legislation in Upper Austria will continue to make it difficult for farmers to get permission to use GM seeds and plants.

“No GM Free Zone”, WIENER ZEITUNG, 13 September 2007; “EU Ministers Deadlocked on Three GMO Maize Approvals”, PLANET ARK, 27 September 2007; “EU Environment Chief Faces GMO Hot Potato”, PLANET ARK, 4 October 2007; “Biotech Maize Blocked in EU”, CHECKBIOTECH.ORG, 27 September 2007.