US to drop GM complaints against European Union

Washington has dropped plans to take the European Union to the World Trade Organisation over its refusal to accept genetically-modified crops, the US embassy in London said today.

The US has threatened a complaint to the WTO, claiming that “Luddite” Europeans had broken the organisation’s free trade rules with a 1998 decision not to allow in new GM seeds or crops. Only US soya, which was approved prior to 1998, is allowed to be sold in the EU.