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| Volume 5 | Number 6 | Date: 1 April 2005 |
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GM UPDATE: EU, BRAZIL, UK EU tells member states to 'take responsibility' for GMO decisions The European Commission on 22 March said that while it continued to have "full confidence" in the EU regulatory process for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and would back the continued submission of draft decisions to put new GMOs on the market, it was time for EU member asates to shoulder the decision-making burden on GMO approvals. "We believe it is time for member states to take on more responsibility for the decisions on the GMOs," a Commission official said. The Commission had been forced to do the political "dirty work" in approving GMOs, the official added, because under the EU's complicated regulatory procedures, GMO submissions which have been approved by the European Food Safety Authority but fail to be approved or rejected by member states go back to the Commission for a final decision. Member states are increasingly abstaining from votes on GMOs, with a small group including Finland and the Netherlands voting in favour and a counter-group, including Austria, Denmark and Greece, voting against. "We will even consider possible changes to legal procedures," the official added, saying that the Commission was "very concerned" with the status of the current WTO case on GMOs brought against the EU by the US, Canada and Argentina (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 10 September 2004). Brazilian bill signed, GM cotton and corn approved Following hot on the heels of the 2 March passage of legislation establishing a regulatory framework for legalising the sale and use of GM crops in the lower house of the Brazilian parliament (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 4 March 2005), Brazilian President Luiz Inacio "Lula" de Silva on 24 March signed the bill into law. In the interim, the country's regulatory body on GMOs, the National Technical Committee on Biotechnology (CTNBio), used the momentum generated by the controversial legislation to vote 11 to one in favour of approving Monsanto's Bollgard GM cotton on 18 March -- the first GM cotton variety to be approved for planting and sale in Brazil. The representative of the Ministry of Environment had voted against the approval, arguing that the decision went against the precautionary principle, Brazilian environmental legislation and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. On 22 March CTNBio also approved the import of 370,000 tons of GM corn from Argentina to be used as chicken feed. The approval had followed a request by the poultry industry in North-Eastern Brazil after drought pushed up domestic corn prices. UK scientists release final study on wildlife impacts of GM crops A 21 March report on the fourth and final British Farm Scale Evaluation (FSE) trial, which test assessed the impact on farmland wildlife of the herbicide use associated with GM crops, concluded that fields planted with winter canola (oilseed rape) genetically modified to resist a herbicide had fewer birds, bees, butterflies and other insects than fields planted with conventional canola. The report found that these differences were the result of the type and way herbicides were applied to the GM and non-modified crops rather than the genetic modification itself. Specifically, the scientists found that -- as a result of a different type of herbicide used -- the GM field contained more weedy grass species, which attract less wildlife, and fewer broad-leaved weeds that produced flowers and seeds that are favoured by wildlife. Earlier trials had shown similar results for spring rape and beet, while GM maize field were found to be better for many groups of wildlife (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 16 October 2003).
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