EU to debate approving second gene maize type
Date: 01-Apr-04
Country: BELGIUM
Author: Jeremy Smith
The ministers now have three months to consider the proposal to allow imports of the maize, known as NK603 and marketed by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto. If they cannot agree by then, the Commission may rubber-stamp its own proposal.
After nearly six years of refusing to authorise new GM crops or products, the EU may now be set to issue a new approval.
If this happens, possibly later next month, it would end the bloc's non-official biotech blockade - and also delight key trading partners such as the United States and Canada, who have challenged EU biotech policy at the World Trade Organisation.
"The NK603 (maize) was submitted to the Council (of ministers) on March 29," a Commission official said.
"Now the Council has three months to approve or reject with QM (qualified majority). If no QM is reached, it will go back to the Commission for decision," she said. The debate will probably be held by environment ministers, next due to meet on June 28.
Under the EU's complex decision-making process, the bloc's 15 member states have different voting rights, with Britain, France, Germany and Italy wielding the most clout. In many cases, a qualified majority is needed to approve a proposal.
NK603 has been engineered to resist the non-selective herbicide glyphosate and allow farmers to manage weeds more effectively. The requested use of this gene maize is for industrial processing, not cultivation.
But before the NK603 debate kicks off in June, a meeting of the bloc's farm ministers next month will discuss a similar proposal on another GM maize type - Bt-11, marketed by Swiss agrochemical giant Syngenta.
This application will be debated by the farm ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg on April 26. If approved, Bt-11 would be imported as a canned food product and would not be for planting.
