No end in sight for EU block on new GM foods

 Reuters, 10.29.01, 12:02 PM ET

 By Robin Pomeroy

 LUXEMBOURG, Oct 29 (Reuters) 

 European Union governments on Monday rejected the idea of lifting a
 three-year ban on importing and planting new genetically modified
 organisms (GMOs), a position a top EU official warned was illegal.

 At a meeting in Luxembourg, many environment ministers from the 15-country  
 bloc spoke against plans by the EU's executive Commission's  to restart 
 licensing GM seeds and crops -- a process that has been stalled since 1998.

 Although no formal decision was  taken, EU Environment
 Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said it was clear from the discussion
 that governments did not want to accept her advice and lift the
 moratorium on new GM licences.

 "This is problematic and I don't know how to solve it," Wallstrom told
 ministers. "We are in a illegal situation."

 Companies like Monsanto (nyse: MON - news - people) and Novartis
 <NOVZn.VX> have been waiting for years to know whether their new strains
 of modified maize, soy and cotton can be sold in the EU.

 A total of 13 GM varieties have been in regulatory limbo since 1998
 when a hard core of six EU governments, led by France, said they would
 not allow any new GMOs into the EU until tough rules on testing,
 labelling and tracing were put in place.

 The Commission fears a legal suit from the biotech firms which, it
 believes, could force it to overrule national governments and approve
 the GMOs for use anywhere in the EU.

 TRADE RISK

 Wallstrom said the EU may be open to a complaint from GMO exporters
 like the United States at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

 The Commission suggested earlier this month the EU should license new
 GMOs as long as their makers agreed to be bound by the new rules, some
 of which have already been agreed in principle by EU institutions but
 have yet to come into force.

 In a debate transmitted to journalists via television, only Spain, the
 Netherlands and Britain showed willingness to accept the Commission's
 idea. Many more member states said draft rules on labelling and tracing
 GMOs would first need months of debate.

 "It isn't possible to start discussing a possible end to the moratorium
 as long as there is no operational system on traceability and labelling, 
 and that is some way off," French Environment Minister Yves Cochet told 
 the meeting.

 It could take another two years for countries to formally adopt the
 Commission's proposed regulations on traceability and labelling,
 Wallstrom said.

 The delay would be many years longer if member states insisted, as
 France and Luxembourg said they might, on a major new directive on
 environmental liability to be drafted and passed into law before new
 licences were granted.

 Crops such as maize, soy and cotton modified to increase resistance to
 disease or increase yield, are widely accepted in the United States and
 are treated much the same as conventional strains.

 But public opinion in Europe, bruised by the mad cow affair when
 scientific advice failed to prevent the spread of a lethal new disease,
 has proved sceptical to GMOs, often characterised in the  press as
 "Frankenstein foods".

 Only 11 GM strains were granted licences to be cultivated in the EU
 before the informal moratorium was introduced. Some 50 strains are commonly 
 planted in countries like the United States and Argentina, Wallstrom said.

 The proposed rules on traceability, which have themselves infuriated
 U.S. farmers, would make it possible to trace GM crops back to the farm
 they were grown in, making product recalls possible  if health risks
 were found.