In a statement yesterday, Greenpeace claims the European Commission gave the green light to Monsanto's MON810 maize into the EU seed catalogue, without a "comprehensive monitoring plan."
Cleared by Brussels in September last year, the Commission said at the time that Monsanto's GE seed monitoring plan had met with "all the necessary requirements" under current regulations.
Greenpeace contests that the monitoring plan was provided to member states under the old EU Directive; that required a far less extensive level of monitoring than the current Directive (2001/18/EC).
"Simple investigations reveal that the only monitoring plan the EU refers to is nothing more than Monsanto's own monitoring from 1995, that only considers the issue of the possible emergence of resistance to Bt-toxin in European corn borer populations," says Greenpeace.
The first time a GE variety achieved a listing in Europe's common seed catalogue, Monsanto's maize has met with opposition. Opponents to GM crops believe allowing GM seeds will lead to contamination of the food chain; as well as being difficult to control by farmers and food makers.
Simon Barber, at biotech umbrella body Europabio, says the industry is "fully aware of approval seed requirements under new legislation."
The suggestion is: that if Monsanto won EU seed catalogue approval, full data to meet the new requirements must have been supplied.
Facing the fury of anti-GM campaigners, in May 2004 the Commission pushed through approval for a GM sweetcorn, supplied by Swiss biotech firm Syngenta, to enter the food and feed chain, but not cultivation.
This was the first approval of a GM foodstuff since 1998, and marked the end of the de facto moratorium set up that same year, that blocked any new GM food crops from ending up as ingredients in European food products.
Cleared within months of Syngenta's product, MON810, engineered for resistant to the European corn borer, achieved the second approval.
The EU now some of the strictest rules in the world that relate to the presence of genetically modified organisms in food products, easily alerting consumers to any GM material in a food formulation.
Despite clearance on the market, against the backdrop of a cynical GM-wary consumer, food makers in Europe are opting to skip GM ingredients in food formulations, conscious that such a move would be unlikely to lead to sales.
Member states remain divided over the GM issue. In December last year, European environment ministers failed - and not for the first time - to back a proposal to bring a further GM food crop, designed by US biotech giant Monsanto, onto the EU market.
At a council meeting the ministers failed reach a majority decision on a Commission proposal to approve the importation and feed use of Monsanto's GT73 GM oilseed rape into the EU.