Environment, Europe, Headlines

ENVIRONMENT: ‘New Europe’ Rejects GM Vote

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Jun 17 2004 (IPS) - The European Union’s new member states have blocked calls from Brussels to allow the import of a genetically modified oilseed rape into the bloc.

A European Commission expert committee made up of national officials from the bloc’s 25 member states failed to support an application to import genetically modified (GM) oilseed rape made by the U.S. biotech giant Monsanto.

Votes from six new EU member states swung the majority behind opposition to the herbicide resistant GM crop.

New members Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Malta, Lithuania and Poland joined Austria, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Britain and Luxembourg in rejecting the oilseed rape known as GT73, which has been modified to resist the biotech company’s chemical herbicide.

Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden backed release of the GM rapeseed. Germany, Ireland, Spain and Slovenia abstained.

"The committee…representing the member states did not reach the qualified majority necessary to support the commission proposal to authorise the oilseed rape," the European Commission said in a statement Wednesday.

The vote was the first test for the newly expanded EU following the European Commission’s decision last month to bring in the first GM food in over five years.

The European Commission, the EU executive, prevailed last month with an earlier decision to import a variety of GM sweetcorn even after enough member states failed to support it. The decision was passed back to the commission after member states failed to break a deadlock on the issue.

The European Commission said it had based its approval on "good science" after the BT-11 sweetcorn was declared safe for human consumption by EU food safety experts.

The sweetcorn, an insect and herbicide-resistant strain currently sold in the United States, is the first new product authorised in Europe since the EU put a de-facto moratorium on imports in place in 1999.

Although the sweetcorn has been approved for import and sale within the EU it still cannot be cultivated in member states.

The EU had imposed the moratorium on approving new GM products in the face of rising public concern about their environmental impact and safety as food.

Critics of GT73 say that Monsanto, which produces the oilseed rape, has failed to satisfy concerns over its environmental impact and food safety.

"Some countries are not content with the responses they have received from Monsanto and have asked for a satisfactory explanation," Adrian Bebb from Friends of the Earth Europe told IPS.

Many EU member states are worried that imported oilseed rape seeds will escape into the environment and create "feral populations" brought about by cross-pollination in fields.

Bebb says cross-pollination of the oilseed rape is a serious threat.

"The seeds from oilseed rape are very small, robust and grow very well in Europe," he said. "It is also closely related to wild plants growing in Europe and can cross with them quite quickly. We also know that because the seeds are so small they get spilled wherever they get transported."

Britain’s Advisory Committee on Release to the Environment (ACRE) which is made up of leading scientists says that if the oilseed rape is imported to the EU "seed spill is likely to occur and will result in the survival and establishment of feral oilseed rape populations and their hybridisation with crop and other feral populations."

British authorities have repeatedly called on Monsanto to produce an adequate monitoring plan and an emergency plan should this occur.

In the run-up to Wednesday’s vote Friends of the Earth said a Monsanto study showed that rats fed the oilseed rape had a 15 percent increase in liver weight.

Wednesday’s vote was welcomed by green campaigners who described it as a big swing against GM products.

GM Coordinator for FoEE Geert Ritsema says the vote marks an important result for new Europe.

"This vote shows that the U.S. cannot count on the new member states to follow their policies in the area of genetically modified food," he said. "Member states have put the safety of European citizens and their environment before the financial interests of biotech giants like Monsanto and their friends in the White House."

The case will now go before council of ministers who will have three months to approve or reject the proposal. If no decision is taken after three months, the file will return to the Commission which is empowered to make the final decision – as it did in May with the BT-11 sweetcorn.

The member states then failed to give the green light for GM corn, but the Commission was able to push the decision through under the "comitology procedure" under which the Commission can take a decision if the council fails to reach a majority decision.

Ritsema urged the EU executive to follow the example of the bloc’s new member states.

"The European Commission should now follow suit and reject GM foods until their safety can be proven," he said.