GM vote put off
But the proposal did not go to a vote, which would have tested the EU's de facto ban on genetically modified products. Instead, EU members will return to this politically divisive issue in December.
Only Britain, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain supported the proposal to put tins of GM sweet corn on European supermarket shelves.
The EU has prohibited new types of GM products since 1998. Although pressure is being applied to drop this ban, consumers remain sceptical, and several key EU states are still opposed.
Bt-11 maize, marketed by Swiss agrochemicals giant Syngenta was to be the subject last Monday of the EU's first vote on a new GM product for five years.
If eventually approved, the maize would be imported into the EU as a product to be eaten from the can, and not for planting.
Germany was among the member states which opposed a vote this week, on safety grounds.
"Major parts of this proposed regulation are unclear," said a spokeswoman for the country's agriculture and consumer protection ministry. "If a system of traceability is to be set up, we must be able to find this (GM maize) material."
Environmentalists want the Bt-11 maize to undergo the stricter safety checks which will apply from April 2004 in new EU rules on labelling and tracing food and animal feed.
For the planned December vote, the Commission will need a qualified majority of member states, under the EU's weighted voting system, to approve or to reject the Bt-11 maize. If there is no weighted majority, the matter will be turned over to EU farm ministers for a period of three months. If EU states make no decision, the issue will be sent back to the Commission.
Even if the EU lifts its ban, farmers have many months to wait before getting a green light to plant biotech crops a breakthrough which could prevent a damaging trade war declaration by the US, which already heads a legal assault on the EU's GM ban, through the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
