Biotech groups despair at EU attitudes By Michael Mann Published: November 9 2001 18:18 | Last Updated: November 9 2001 19:09 When, if ever, will the European Union finally start approving genetically modified crops again? That is the question European biotechnology companies are asking after EU environment ministers last month spurned the European Commission's latest effort to get the long-stalled authorisation process moving again. No new genetically modified crops have been approved in the EU for more than three years. Last month, ministers made it plain that proposed new rules on labelling and tracing modified ingredients will have to be in place before they will consider lifting the block. This could take as long as three years. While delighting the environmentalists, who have run a highly effective campaign against such genetically modified foods, the impasse has angered the biotech industry, set Europe on a collision course with the US, and presented the Commission with a serious dilemma. The Commission has earmarked biotechnology as a key area for growth in the EU's oft-stated quest to become the world's leading knowledge-based economy by 2010. Yet a hard-core of EU governments has declared a voluntary moratorium on new modified crop approvals, fearing a consumer backlash from the perception that foods derived from such crops pose potential health risks. European attitudes to food safety have hardened following a number of scares, most notably mad cow disease crisis. Evidence of danger to human health is scant. Opponents of modified foods most often point to the US case of the corn StarLink, developed by Aventis, which was linked to several complaints alleging serious allergic reactions. However, StarLink was approved only for animal feed and found its way accidentally into some food products. Commission officials insist that genetically modified products face much more stringent pre-release testing than conventional crops. They point out that consumers happily swallow pills developed using biotechnology, while spurning foods derived from modified crops. "There's a definite schizophrenia in Europe," says Simon Barber of Europabio, which speaks for biotechnology companies in Europe. "We hear a number of positive statements about the importance of biotechnology, but the regulatory machinery is stuck." There is much at stake. In a recent report, the Commission highlighted the dangers of a brain-drain to countries, such as the US, where the business environment is far more favourable to the biotechnology industry and where R&D expenditure dwarfs the amount of money spent in the EU. Biotech companies claim farmers are being deprived of new products that could give them a vital competitive edge and also point to the environmental benefits of modified crops, which reduce pesticide and herbicide use. Meanwhile, the US administration is coming under growing pressure from industry to act against the EU, on the grounds that its moratorium is illegal and prevents US farmers shipping to Europe varieties of corn and soya that have not been approved for EU use. The US claims to be losing $200m in corn exports a year and some estimates put the additional cost to the US of applying new EU standards to bulk commodity exports at as much as $4bn a year. The Commission also believes that the moratorium is illegal, as EU governments are refusing to even vote on approving 13 genetically modified crop varieties already cleared by the EU's own scientific advisers. Under the EU's regulatory system, the Commission is supposed to authorise any products once they are passed as safe if governments fail to take a decision. But while it fears legal action from disgruntled biotech groups if it fails to act, it is also acutely aware of the public relations disaster if it chose to override the wishes of elected EU governments, particularly on an issue as sensitive as food safety. The hard core of countries behind the moratorium - France, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Greece and Luxembourg - originally called for new rules on tracing and labelling modified foods a condition for ending their opposition. Margot Wallstrom, EU environment commissioner, hoped the Commission's adoption in late July of proposals to meet these demands would end the logjam. She has described the response she received as "very disturbing". A number of ministers stressed there could be no end to the moratorium before the labelling rules are on the statute book, a process which could take up to three years. France went further, suggesting there was a need for specific new laws on companies' liability for environmental damage caused by their products. All this leaves the system in limbo and the Commission facing the reality that EU governments are stifling an industry it has singled out for favoured status. "It's about time the member states actually stood up and said whether or not they really want GMOs," says one frustrated official. "They've got to stop using a science-based safety system for political ends."