BRUSSELS: The European Union yesterday defied public opinion and green campaigners by effectively lifting a five-year-old ban on bio-engineered food.
The EU’s executive commission approved an application by Swiss biotech company Syngenta to import a strain of sweetcorn that has been genetically modified to resist insects, BT-11. Syngenta was given approval to import the GM tinned sweetcorn into the 25-nation bloc for 10 years, provided the cans are clearly labelled as containing GM products.
EU health commissioner David Byrne said the sweetcorn had undergone “the most rigorous pre-marketing assessment in the world” by EU food-safety scientists.
“Food safety is therefore not an issue, it is a question of consumer choice,” he said.
A number of other companies are hoping to follow the trail blazed by Syngenta. The EU is studying another 33 applications for the marketing or cultivation of GM foodstuffs in Europe.
The EU effectively imposed a moratorium on approving new GM products in 1999 in the face of rising public concern about their environmental impact and safety as food. The decision on whether to lift the ban was passed back to the commission after EU member states failed last month to break a deadlock on the issue.
Italy, one of the countries that opposed ending the ban, said it was now up to market forces to decide the success of GM food in Europe.
Agriculture Minister Gianni Alemanno promised his government would be “vigilant” to ensure GM producers respect tough EU regulations that paved the way for yesterday’s decision.
Aside from clear labelling on their goods, GM producers must also store all data about the origin, composition and sale of their products for a five-year period, which Brussels describes as the world’s toughest GM food regulations. The next front of the GM battle in Europe will be over authorisation for growing bio-engineered crops in fields – which Alemanno called a “much more serious problem”.
He said that on this point, “we must remain especially firm because the use of GM in farming can contaminate non-GM farming... which would threaten the freedom of choice of consumers and producers”.
The EU has been under mounting pressure from the United States, the world's biggest producer of GM foods which has led a group of 12 countries demanding the World Trade Organisation overturn the European ban. But one EU survey suggested that more than 70 percent of Europeans oppose GM products. Activists have lobbied hard against a technology they argue could prove dangerous for human consumption and for the environment.
The European Association for Bioindustries (EuropaBio) said this was an insult to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which declared BT-11 safe for human consumption. “It is a slap in the face for the EFSA, which has spent a tremendous amount of energy in conducting the safety evaluation,” EuropaBio secretary-general Johan Vanhemelrijck said. – AFP
Last update on: 20-5-2004