Three EU states seen keeping ban on GMO maize type

The United States may see its case against Europe’s biotech policy strengthened this week as three EU governments look set to maintain bans on a type of genetically modified (GMO) maize, a EU official said on Monday.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, wants Austria, Luxembourg and Germany to scrap their bans on Bt-176, a GMO maize strain made by Swiss biotech giant Syngenta .

The Commission says there is no scientific justification for the bans on health and environmental grounds.

It fears failure for the Commission view could fuel arguments in the more pro-biotech United States that the EU’s policy on genetically modified organisms harms trade and is not founded on science.

This is the key aspect of Washington’s case against Europe’s biotech policy in the World Trade Organization.

EU environment ministers from the 25-nation bloc will vote on the bans on Friday.

“It’s likely that there will now be a degree of consensus among member states sufficient to give a qualified majority against the Commission proposal,” the Commission’s Environment department head Catherine Day told a news briefing.

If the 25-nation bloc rejects the Commission proposal, the EU executive can resubmit the bid, amend it or drop it. The Commission might end up going to court to get the three states to enforce EU law, Day said.

Either way, the legal battle to end the bans will take another few years and leave the EU open to attack as the United States, Canada and Argentina are challenging the EU’s biotech policy in the World Trade Organization.

They say the bloc’s 1998 de facto moratorium on new biotech products was illegal even though the EU lifted its unofficial ban in 2004 and restarted approving new GMO foods once new tougher safety rules came into force.

“The safeguard clauses (bans) are also part of the WTO action which is ongoing at the moment. There are a number of third countries who also challenge the fact that in their opinion the safeguard clauses go too far,” said Day.

Germany, Austria and Luxembourg slapped their national bans on Bt-176 maize between 1997 and 2000 in response to European public opposition to biotechnology.

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