European GM ban set to be lifted

A five-and-a-half-year European ban on the use of genetically-modified crops is expected to be lifted today.

European Commission approval for the marketing of GM sweetcorn will mark the end of a moratorium on the sale or production of any GM foods.

But it also risks a public backlash, according to Friends of the Earth.

The GM sweetcorn crop, known as BT-11, was approved by the Commission in January, but national governments were given until the end of April to raise objections.

With no one bidding to block the approval, the crop should now automatically be cleared by the Commission.

It will be the first GM approval in Europe since October 1998.

BY-11 is developed by Swiss-based Syngenta and has been genetically engineered to include a deadly insecticide.

And although today’s likely approval is only for food and animal feed imports into the EU and not for growing, FoE warned opposition remains high and safety concerns about GM crops are still “unresolved”.

Adrian Bebb, GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: “This will be one of the first major decisions of the newly-expanded European Commission.

“It provides a great opportunity for them to put the welfare of citizens before the financial interests of the biotechnology industry or its friends in the White House.

“There is clearly no political consensus across Europe on this genetically-modified sweetcorn.

“Scientists cannot agree over its safety and the public does not want it. If the Commission decides to force this down our throats, then they can only expect the public’s confidence in GM foods to sink even further.”

If approved today, it will be the first new GM product allowed on to the European market since October 1998.

But Euro-MP David Bowe, Labour’s environment spokesman in the European Parliament, described the move as good news for consumers and farmers, increasing choice and competition: “To approve the growing of this crop might be seen as politically brave, but when it comes to the science, it is a no-brainer.

“The crop has been tested and those tests have been properly, scientifically, reviewed. The crop is perfectly safe, there is no harm to the environment - let’s suck it and see.”

Mr Bowe accused some anti-GM campaigners of battling against scientific advance regardless of rational arguments: “They cannot win the debate on rational grounds, so they have resorted to scaring the public.

“Often this debate has been poisoned by mumbo-jumbo, such as pictures of chickens with fishes’ heads, talk of Frankenstein and freak foods. Typically, the populist hard right have teamed up with the far left in their age-old alliance against progress.

“Now it seems the bluff of the anti-scientific campaigners is about to be called.”