Financial Times (London)
December 2, 2002

Commission seeks consensus on GM labels

By DANIEL DOMBEY
BRUSSELS

Denmark  and  the  European  Commission  will  push   environment
ministers  to  agree  new rules on genetically modified organisms
this month,  building on a separate deal reached  by  agriculture
ministers last week.  

Both  measures,  setting  out  rules  for labelling,  have become
sensitive as a minority of states has denied EU authorisation for
new  GM  products  for  the  past  four  years.   The   effective
moratorium  has stoked tensions with the US.  The deal reached on
Thursday night by agriculture ministers on rules for labelling GM
food and  animal  feed  clears  the  way  for  agreement  between
environment ministers on December 9 on a regime for "traceability
and labelling" for GM products.  

"We made it clear that if we had not reached agreement last week,
we  would  not  present  the issue to the environment ministers,"
said  a  spokesman  for  Denmark,   which  holds  the   revolving
presidency of the EU.  

At  the  agricultural  ministers'  meeting,  a  majority agreed a
product should be labelled for GMO content if it  contained  more
than 0.9 per cent.  This is a reduction on the current level of 1
per cent.  

The  legislation  also  extends  the  current regulations,  which
govern food,  to animal feed and to products derived  from  GMOs,
such as oils and flour, even if no traces of GM DNA remain.  

The  ministers  also  agreed  that  food  would be allowed on the
market if it had been contaminated by minute traces of GMOs  that
have received a favourable scientific assesment but which had not
been authorised in the EU because of the moratorium.  

They set this level at 0.5 per cent.  

The deal was opposed by Britain,  which wanted higher thresholds,
and by Austria and Luxembourg,  which considered that  the  rules
did not go far enough.  

Environment ministers will have to consider the same issues,  but
also decide how specific importers  have  to  be  when  declaring
shipments "may contain" GMOs.  

The  countries  that  favour the moratorium want an exact list of
GMOs in such statements,  but  the  UK  believes  this  would  be
unworkable - as does the US.  

Any  deal  by the environment ministers will have to be submitted
to the European parliament,  as will the  agriculture  ministers'
compromise.  

Commission  officials  believe that a push to lift the moratorium
for the authorisation of new GM products  may  not  get  off  the
ground until next summer.