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EU pledges to begin approving gene-modified crops this year
(Tuesday, June 17, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Bloomberg news, 06/13/03 -- The European Union plans to begin
licensing the sale of new genetically altered food later this year
after the parliament passes rules on labeling the products, ending
a de facto five-year ban, an official said.
Once those approvals are made, the U.S. Trade
Representative's office has pledged to withdraw a World Trade
Organization complaint, Tony van der Haegen, the EU official in
charge of biotechnology in Washington, said.
``In the fall the legislation will be in place and the
pipeline will be opened,'' van der Haegen said at a press
briefing. The European parliament is set to consider proposals for
the new labeling measures next month.
The resumption of licensing gene-altered crops isn't likely
to end the trans-Atlantic dispute over biotechnology. U.S. groups
such as the 5-million-member American Farm Bureau say the labeling
rules the EU is considering may be worse than the current ones.
The farmers are calling on the Bush administration to
challenge such rules at the WTO. Identifying a product as
genetically modified may effectively ban them from Europe, because
more than 70 percent of Europeans say they won't eat those foods
even if they are less expensive, an EU study found.
At stake for the U.S. are markets for seeds produced by
Monsanto Co. and other companies to help farmers grow crops that
resist pest infestations and disease. U.S. farmers say they've
lost $1 billion since the ban was put into effect in 1998, and
fear that other countries will use the EU's restriction to justify
their own prohibitions on the crops.
Geneva Meeting
European and U.S. officials are set to meet in Geneva next
week to discuss the WTO case against the EU ban, more than a month
after the U.S. said it was appealing to the global trade arbiter.
The promise to end the de facto ban comes even as the two
sides are stepping up their rhetoric.
The U.S. House of Representatives this week passed a
resolution supporting the case against the European ban. It said
the technology ``holds tremendous promise for helping solve food
security and human health crises in the developing world.''
The resolution blamed the EU for adopting policies with ``no
scientific justification.'' U.S. officials say the EU ban isn't
based on science and hurts Africa's poor. U.S. farmers estimate
the restriction costs them $300 million annually in lost sales.
`Amazing to Hear'
``It is amazing to hear -- and I will say it bluntly -- these
lies,'' van der Haegen said, referring to the House resolution.
New European-wide rules, scheduled for a European Parliament
vote in July, are meant to encourage six EU nations -- Italy,
France, Austria, Luxembourg, Greece and Denmark -- to drop their
opposition to new genetically modified products. New requests for
approval have already been made in anticipation that the proposals
will become law.
The EU also offered a new defense against charges by
President George W. Bush and others that the ban on biotech crops
has hurt the malnourished in Africa.
Last August, Zimbabwe and Zambia, in the middle of a famine,
refused to accept 100,000 metric tons of corn donated by the U.S.
because of fears the crop's genes had been manipulated.
Officials in those countries said they feared that if the
modified seeds, known as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs,
intermingled with their crops they would no longer be able to
export to the Europe.
`Not The Panacea'
``GMOs are not the panacea likely to solve famine in
Africa,'' a report published by the European Commission in
Washington today said. ``If African farmers were to use existing
GMO seeds -- and the EU does not oppose that at all -- they would
be totally dependent on Western companies which retain the
patents.''
The report concluded: ``EU bashing on the GMO case is mainly
inspired by the will of the U.S. farm lobby to find new outlets
for exports.''
U.S. Trade Representative spokesman Richard Mills declined to
comment.
--Mark Drajem in the Washington newsroom (202) 624-1964 or
mdrajem@bloomberg.net. Editor: McQuillan. | |
