European Commission takes stock of GM food ingredients
table as the Commission discusses the way forward at a meeting
today in Brussels, reports Lindsey Partos.
Food and feed approvals, seeds, thresholds and controversial co-existence safe-guard measures are all expected to figure in the debate.
Heated discussions are likely as the biotech issue continues to divide national state opinion.
Tough new regulations on the labelling of GM ingredients on foodstuffs that essentially flag up a biotech ingredient to the consumer, have done apparently little to encourage approval and use of GM crops.
The food industry, in beat with the demands of the consumer, continues to steer away from using such ingredients in their formulations. By their reasoning the European GM-cynical shopper is highly unlikely to buy a foodstuff that contains a genetically modified product.
Since the end to Europe's de facto moratorium last year on biotech food approvals, Commission proposals paving the way for the import of new GM crops into the European food chain have met with a mixed reaction from member states.
Up until January this year, the Commission had asked EU members nine times to vote on the import authorisation of a GMO food or feed product. In eight cases, there was no agreement and in the ninth, the deadlock around the table resulted in the vote being postponed.
To date, only two crops, Bt11 sweetcorn from Swiss agrochemicals firm Syngenta whose approval broke the EU ban on GM food and feed crop imports, and NK603 maize designed by biotech giant Monsanto, have been approved under regulation (EC) No 97/258 on novel foods, in May and October 2004 respectively.
On both occasions, approval was pushed through by the Commission, under an obscure facet of European law known as the 'comitology procedure'.
Critics of GM foods claim Brussels is caving into pressure from the US, the number one exporter of GM food crops. Brussels, in response, affirms the tough new laws on GM foodstuff labelling in Europe, some of the most stringent in the world, paved the way for entry of GM foods.
Meeting with strong opposition from environmental groups, there are proposals to allow the cultivation of GM crops, for example maize 1507, a decision that now lies with the ministers of the member states.
The 'pro' camp was given a boost last week after the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), in its first ever assessment on GM crop growing, cleared the 1507 maize.
