GMO UPDATE: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN EUROPE

European Food Committee fails to end de facto biotech moratorium

The European Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health at its 8 December meeting failed to reach the qualified majority required for approving Syngenta's Bt-11 biotech maize (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 14 November 2003), with 33 votes in favour, 29 against and 25 abstentions. Austria, Denmark, France, Greece and Luxembourg voted against the proposal, while Germany, Belgium and Italy abstained. A positive vote would have put an end to the ongoing de fact moratorium on the approval of new genetically modified organisms (GMO) -- at least for biotech foods -- which is currently being challenged in the WTO by the US, Canada and Argentina (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 25 August 2003). The proposal will now be put to the European Council of Agriculture Ministers (probably in January), which will be required to take a decision within three months. If it fails to decide, the Commission can adopt the proposal unilaterally. Friends of the Earth hailed the vote as a "victory for public safety and common sense". The group insists that the maize should be assessed under the new, more thorough approval process recently adopted in the EC. The Commission has stressed that the product would not be sold before April 2004 when the new traceability and labelling rules enter into force, which would also apply to the biotech maize.

EU Parliamentarians call for Community-wide rules on co-existence

On 2 December, the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee adopted an own-initiative report on the coexistence of GM crops and conventional and organic crops. The report calls for basic provisions on the management of co-existence at the Community-level, rather than simply providing guidelines for national measures as proposed by the Commission (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 28 August 2003), in an effort to avoid distortions of competition. The report also suggests that liability for possible damage should rest with the original manufacturer of a GMO. Liability would be passed on to the users of GMOs if they do not comply with the conditions of sale and use. Moreover, the report stresses that members states should be allowed to impose regional restrictions on GMO cultivation, which the report notes might sometimes be the most effective and least costly measure to ensure co-existence. It thereby opens the door for regions such as Upper Austria to retain their self-proclaimed GM-free status (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 11 November 2003). The Committee, however, could not agree on a threshold for the accidental presence of GMOs in seeds, simply noting that it should be set at a "technically and statistically reliable detection threshold". The Commission has proposed a threshold of 0.3 and 0.7 percent depending on the seed.

The European Parliament is due to vote on the report during the plenary session in January.

"EU fails to end moratorium on genetically modified food," ENS, 9 December 2003; "Member states divided over GM food ban," EURACTIV, 8 December 2003.