New GM crops in Europe?

The European Commission has issued proposals for two new varieties of genetically modified maize to be grown in Europe - the cultivation of Bt11 (produced by Syngenta) and 1507 (produced by Pioneer). The Commission has also proposed to remove national bans on Monsanto's MON810 maize. In a proposal sent to EU member states, the Commission also states that it wants to force Greece, Hungary and France to drop their national bans on similar GM maize. National governments will be asked to vote on the proposals in February. A vote on whether the ban which is currently in force in Hungary is allowed to stand will be taken at the March meeting of European Environment Ministers.
 

According to Helen Holder, GMO coordinator at Friends of the Earth Europe, the Commission was not making sense. European Environment Ministers had called for serious improvements to GMO laws barely a month ago and the Commission itself had demanded a two year review of how the safety and environmental impacts of GM crops were assessed. European countries should reject these proposals, Ms Holder stated, and ensure that the risks and impacts of these GM crops were fully understood before they were allowed on farms, into food and into the environment.
 

EU countries had called for wide ranging improvements to the EU's GMO laws, including that pesticide-producing GM crops should be assessed under EU laws for chemical pesticides and not just under laws for GMOs and that the socio-economic impacts of GM crops were assessed over the next 18 months - something which has so far not been done. Despite public opposition, the EU has approved a number of biotech plants for import in recent years. But the EU hasn't given approval for European farmers to plant a biotech crop since 1998, when it approved a genetically modified corn developed by Monsanto, the only genetically modified crop that is allowed to be grown in the EU.
 

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