EU ducks GM rules

Any EU move to Europe-wide legislation on the coexistence of GM with conventional crops has been postponed until 2008 or beyond.

A European commission study has concluded that EU legislation setting rules are not feasible while Europe’s remains an almost GM-free zone.

The issue is set to be debated at an EU presidency conference in Vienna on April 5 - Austria is deeply hostile to GM crops.

The commission in 2003 placed the burden on national authorities of ensuring that GM crops are grown alongside non-GM crops without accidental mixing.

Public hostility, strict labelling laws and the organic farm lobby’s ideological opposition to biotech have raised fears that GM entering the mix could have negative economic consequences.

European agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel stressed that developing coexistence techniques was a choice rather that a safety issue.

“This is not a question of health or environmental protection, because no GMOs are allowed on the EU market unless they have been proved to be completely safe,” she said.

“To ensure that consumers know exactly what they are buying the EU has developed an advanced labelling and traceability system for GM.”

Fischer Boel argues that experience with segregation measures to keep GM kept within strict ranges defined by EU legislation is too limited at present to generalise from.

“Growing conditions are very varied from country to country and experience with GM crops is still limited in Europe. It therefore does not seem appropriate to propose unified EU rules at this time,” she said.

A March 10 commission report notes that “experience with the cultivation of GM crops remains extremely limited in the EU”.

Commercial cultivation in the EU is so far restricted to two types of GM maize concentrated in just one of the EU 25 members.

Spanish GM maize cultivation was at 58,000 hectares in 2004 representing 12 per cent of total production.

“In other member states cultivation is limited to a few hundred hectares,” said a commission statement.

Spain has adopted no legislation, taking a voluntary approach and only Germany, Denmark, Portugal and six Austrian Länder had acted by the end of 2005.

US and other countries have taken the EU to the WTO over claims that some European capitals have imposed rules effectively banning GM.

The WTO ruled last month that the EU was breaching global trade agreements by restricting approvals of new GM crops.

The commission insist that coexistence measures “should be science-based and proportionate and must not generally forbid the growing of GM crops”.

But while running scared of setting Europe’s wide rules, Brussels has raised internal free market objections to many national schemes.

Environmental campaigners Friends of the Earth accuse the commission of leaving the door open to GM crops and delaying legislation until biotech is widespread.

“The commission has decided to first contaminate and then legislate, a move in line with the interests of the biotechnology industry,” said FOE GM campaigner Helen Holder.

“By adopting a 'wait-and-contaminate' policy, the commission ignores the rights of European consumers and farmers who do not want to experiment with genetically modified foods.”

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