EU ministers fail to give green light on Monsanto sweetcorn
allowed on European dinner plates as ministers fail to give the
green light on the GM food.
European ministers from the 25 national governments yesterday failed to clear the herbicide resistant NK603 corn for use in foods.
The US biotech firm had sought authorisation for NK603 as a food product, already last year cleared as safe by the EU's food agency, the European Food Safety Authority.
"The Dutch presidency did not proceed to a vote because it was clear they [the ministers] would not reach a qualified majority," a Commission spokesperson told FoodNavigator.com.
Under the EU's complex legal apparatus the Commission now has the power to rubberstamp approval for the Monsanto maize when the file returns to Brussels after a three month stint with the EU 25 ministers. Approval could come as early as October.
Industry observers suggest Brussels will give the go ahead, particularly in light of its decision last month to break the five year de facto moratorium on GM foods by pushing through approval for a GM sweetcorn from Swiss biotech firm Syngenta to enter the food chain. The first approval of a GM foodstuff since 1998.
Cleared by Brussels for food and feed - not cultivation - the Council of Ministers had previously failed to reach a qualified majority decision on Bt11.
Critics suggest the Commission move last month was purely political, linked to pressure from the US - a leading global supporter and supplier of GM food crops - that is pushing Europe to accept GMOs into the food chain. The US charges that its biotech farmers are losing billions of dollars in trade as the borders to Europe remain closed.
"Those countries who rejected today's authorisation are refusing to make life easy for the Commission in its attempts to appease the Bush administration and its business cronies," said Eric Gall at Greenpeace.
If authorised, the maize would be used as any other maize, except for cultivation and food uses. Its authorisation would be for 10 years and it would have to be clearly labelled as being genetically modified.
But in a separate move yesterday the European Commission approved Monsanto's NK603 maize for import, feed use, and industrial processing in the EU for 10 years.
"We welcome the Commission decision to approve another plant biotech product in Europe, the second since 1998," commented Johan Vanhemelrijck, secretary general of EuropaBio, the European association for bioindustries. "We hope that further approvals will follow."
NK603 is field maize genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate herbicide and provides farmers with additional options of weed control management in this crop. The GM field maize is approved for import and food use in Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa , Taiwan and the US and was first approved in 2000.
Non-GM maize, or corn, is grown commercially in over 100 countries, with a combined global harvest of 590 million metric tonnes. The major producers of maize in 2000 were the US, China, Brazil, Mexico, France, and Argentina. Maize is grown primarily for its kernel, which is largely refined into products used in a wide range of food, medical, and industrial goods.
