by
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and Charles Clover
A SIX-YEAR moratorium on imports of genetically modified foods was lifted by the European Commission yesterday as it bowed to pressure from the United States.
Brussels approved the import and sale of tinned and frozen GM sweetcorn from crops produced by the Swiss firm Syngenta, so long as it is clearly labelled as a bio-engineered product.
The decision, which brought protests from environmentalists, comes after years of wrangling and gives a boost to the new technology, opening the way for imports of GM food and animal feed.
It skirts, however, the issue of GM crop cultivation, where there is a risk of cross-contamination and scientific opinion is much more divided.
The EU faces a backlog of 33 other products awaiting licences, including a Swedish potato with enhanced starch and a super-red tomato puree.
The move helps to defuse a row with the US, which has accused the EU of using bogus health scares to block imports from American agro-industrial giants, such as Monsanto, which dominate the GM industry. A pounds 2.4 billion case is pending at the World Trade Organisation.
The commission had little choice after the EU's food safety agency concluded that there was no scientific justification for a ban.
David Byrne, the Irish food safety commissioner, who announced his retirement from EU politics yesterday, said Europe could not turn its back on scientific progress. "GM sweetcorn has been subjected to the most rigorous pre-marketing assessment in the world. It has been scientifically assessed as being as safe as any conventional maize," he said.
The decision was welcomed by Britain, which hosts one of the EU's leading bio-tech sectors, much of it around Cambridge.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "There's a wonderful open-air laboratory in the US where people have been eating this stuff for years without keeling over. All we're saying is that consumers should be able to make their own educated choice."
The Government has long argued that the EU was in danger of missing the world's second "agricultural revolution".
But the move is certain to prove unpopular across the EU, where 70 per cent of those polled say they refuse to eat any GM foods.
France, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg and Greece have been sceptical, but have softened their line since the introductions of new labelling rules in April. Environmental groups protested in Brussels yesterday, accusing the commission of caving in to the bio-tech giants and the White House.
Friends of the Earth said: "There is clearly no political consensus across Europe on this genetically modified sweetcorn. Scientists cannot agree over its safety and the public does not want it."
Even so, there are still tough labelling and traceability rules that could amount to an effective barrier to many imports of GM foods.
Under the new regime, everything from crisps to fizzy drinks must be labelled as a GM product if they contain 0.9 per cent of GM material.
This means that firms have to keep an exhaustive paper trail from farm to kitchen, providing each batch of goods with its own "passport". The bio-tech industry says the purity standard is so exacting that it acts as a trade barrier.
Most supermarket chains in Britain also have bans on GM foods, so it is unclear how much of the new GM maize will be taken up.THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON):
