Biotech industry slams EU Council GMO ruling
uphold a Greek ban on genetically modified (GM) corn, claiming that
the judgement flies in the face of EFSA advice on biotech crops.
The organisation, which represents Europe's bioindustry, called the council's inability to reject the Greek Government's temporary ban on Monsanto's MON 810 corn as "disappointing".
"Neither the Greek Government nor any of the authorities have provided any validated scientific evidence to support either a ban or withholding approval to use these products in food," said Simon Barber, director of the plant biotechnology unit at EuropaBio.
"Consequently it is disappointing to see the council's lack of support for the law especially as it is was council that put in place the GM rules in the first place."
The council also failed to reach agreement on decisions to approve foods and food ingredients produced from Monsanto's herbicide-resistant maize GM maize GA 21 and MON 863, a transgenic corn used for food engineered by Monsanto to resist the corn rootworm insect, despite claims that positive safety assessments had been received from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
It is clear that Member States still need to be convinced that introducing genetically modified ingredients into food production is acceptable. From 1998 to 2004 the EU imposed a ban on approving any new GM crops.
Tough new rules on GM ingredient food labelling imposed last year have since cleared a way to end the ban, with a couple of new approvals already passed into the Official Journal.
But as this latest council decision shows, the EU remains significantly divided on this issue. The Commission has, to date, asked EU members over ten times to vote on authorising a GMO food or feed product. But in the large majority of cases, there was no agreement or simple deadlock.
EuropaBio, the European Association for Bioindustries which has 50 direct global members and 25 national biotechnology associations representing 1,500 enterprises, will continue to lobby for GM approval.
The organisation has had some victories. Earlier this month for example, the Upper Austria Region failed to win its case at the EU Court of First Instance on the region's draft law to ban planting GMOs.
And it is also worth noting that under an obscure facet of the law known as the 'comitology procedure', Brussels can actually push through Mon 863 and GA21 through to law because the council has failed to reach a majority decision.
