Agence France Presse| April 26, 2004
EU farm ministers were unable to agree Monday on approval for the sale of BT-11 bio-engineered corn, and sent the issue back to the European Commission, a European source said.
If approved, the measure would in effect lift a five-year European Union ban on genetically modified (GM) foods.
"There was no qualified majority in the Council of Ministers. The BT-11 file was transmitted to the commission," the source said on the sidelines of a meeting in Luxembourg.
The outcome had been expected because of wide differences of opinion on the question, and lays responsibility at the feet of EU commissioners who favor lifting the ban.
Approval could sit poorly with EU consumers, however, since a majority is opposed to GM products.
In December, six countries -- Britain, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden -- voted to allow imports of BT-11 sweetcorn at a meeting of the EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health in December.
Belgium, Germany and Italy abstained from the vote, while Austria, Denmark, France, Greece, Luxembourg and Portugal voted against.
By allowing the Swiss firm Syngenta to import the sweetcorn, the ministers would have effectively scrapped a moratorium on the import and cultivation of GM products imposed by the European Union in 1999.
But the commission -- the EU's executive arm -- openly supports lifting the moratorium to encourage the GM industry in Europe.
The freeze was imposed against a backdrop of public disquiet in Europe on the issue of so-called "Frankenfoods", at the initiative of Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg -- later joined by Austria and Belgium.
The United States, which has the world's biggest biotech industry, is leading a group of 12 countries seeking to overturn the EU moratorium through the World Trade Organisation.
Environmentalists oppose allowing BT-11 onto the market, arguing that it has yet to be proven safe for human consumption, while the Greenpeace pressure group has condemned as "opaque and outdated" the tools used by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) to evaluate GM products.
New EU rules on labelling and tracing GM foods came into force on April 18, introducing rigorous consumer safeguards that could make it easier for Brussels to lift the moratorium.
Consumer rights and environmental groups have welcomed the rules, officially adopted last July, which require food and animal feed to be labelled if they contain at least 0.9 percent of GM ingredients.
Producers and buyers must also store all data about the origin, composition and sale of GM products for a five-year period, which Brussels describes as the toughest GM food regulations anywhere in the world.
Environmentalists have welcomed the measures as a chance for consumers to express their opposition to GM foods.
The measures will apply to the 16 types of GM products currently allowed inside the EU, and to the nine which are currently awaiting approval.
Advocates of GM foods argue that modifications to genes promoting, for example, resistance to certain pests, could greatly increase yields and alleviate global hunger.
Opponents meanwhile say the technology is being pushed forwards by big corporations without sufficient understanding of how GM plants might affect the rest of the environment.:
