By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, May 17 2004 (IPS)

The European Union will face increased public hostility if it approves import of a genetically modified sweetcorn, leading environmental groups warn.

The European Commission, the European Union (EU) executive, is due to give the go-ahead Wednesday to the Swiss firm Syngenta to import BT-11 sweet corn into the EU.

Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) says the Commission will face "increased public hostility" over the approval.

In the face of "high opposition and unresolved safety concerns there is little future for GM food and crops in Europe," it says.

Bt-11 sweet corn is an insect and herbicide-resistant strain currently sold in the United States. The application is for food and animal feed imports. Growing Bt-11 in the EU’s 25 member states has not been permitted.

Bt-11 will be the first GM food to receive import authorisation since the EU put a de-facto moratorium into place in 1999. The Commission has been asking for an end to the moratorium.

But FoEE says "there is virtually no market for GM foods in Europe as consumers have overwhelmingly rejected them."

Opinion polls and public debates show continuing public opposition to GM organisms for safety reasons, and due to wider concerns about the environment, and over corporate control of the food chain.

Critics say Bt-11 has been modified to produce a toxin and that scientific assessment of the strain was undertaken under outdated rules.

A recent survey carried out by FoEE shows that 94.6 percent of EU citizens want the right to choose, while 70.9 percent simply do not want GM food. Initiatives to ban cultivation of GM crops have started in at least 22 European countries. Some regions have introduced their own legislation to ban the crops.

Ten regions from seven countries – Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece and Spain – declared themselves ‘the network of GMO-free regions’ last November.

FoEE is now making a last ditch effort to urge the Commission to put the interests of EU citizens first.

"This will be one of the first major decisions of the newly expanded European Commission," Adrian Bebb from FoEE said in a statement. "It provides a great opportunity for them to put the welfare of its citizens before the financial interests of the biotechnology industry or its friends in the White House."

FoEE said there is no political consensus across Europe on this genetically modified sweet corn. "Scientists cannot agree over its safety and the public does not want it," FoEE said. "If the Commission decides to force this down our throats then they can only expect the public’s confidence in GM foods to sink even further."

Eric Gall from Greenpeace echoed this view. "It is shameful that the government ministers chose to promote corporate interests at the expense of consumers and the environment and against the will of their own citizens," he said in a statement.

"Labelling and consumer opposition are the real barrier against GM food, and this GM sweet corn is unlikely to ever actually make it to the supermarket shelves due to consumer opposition," he said. "Consumers don’t want to be treated as guinea pigs any more."

FoEE says the biotechnology industry is starting to acknowledge that it has "no future in Europe." Countries that have planted GM crops on a large scale have seen export of normal crops to Europe crash, it says.

Export of maize from the United States to Europe has declined from 3.3 million tonnes in 1995 to just 25,000 tonnes in 2002, FoEE says. Canada has lost all of its oilseed rape (canola) market to Europe worth an estimated 300 million dollars.

Excerpt: