Austria Could be Target of EU Wrath Over GMO Ban (18/4/2006)

[more coverage of the main story of the day:
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EU commission "admitted GM food uncertainty"
The Guardian, 18 April 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,1756138,00.html ]

EXCERPTS from article below: As last June's meeting showed, an EU order for a government to lift its national GMO ban can prove extremely unpopular.

This is especially true in countries such as Austria where opinion is strongly opposed to biotech foods and there is a strong movement to set up GMO-free zones.

Not only that, to try to do this to the current holder of the EU's rotating six-month presidency might run the risk of attracting a lot of sympathy from other EU governments -- meaning the Commission might face a second embarrassing defeat.

One senior Commission official said the companies had now withdrawn most of the products in any case...
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Austria Could be Target of EU Wrath Over GMO Ban
by Jeremy Smith Reuters, 10 April 2006
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35947/story.htm

BRUSSELS - Austria, current president of the European Union, looks like the only country that might face an order to lift its bans on certain genetically modified (GMO) products, senior European Commission officials said on Friday.

Between 1997 and 2000, five EU countries banned specific GMOs on their territory, focusing on three maize and two rapeseed types that were approved shortly before the start of the EU's six-year moratorium on new biotech authorisations.

Last June, the Commission, the EU's executive arm, tried to get all the bans scrapped. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has also attacked these "national safeguards", as they are called in EU jargon, for breaking international trade rules.

But it got a stinging rebuff from EU environment ministers, which rejected proposals for the five states -- Austria, France, Germany, Greece and Luxembourg -- to lift their restrictions.

It was the first time that EU countries had managed to agree anything on biotech policy in years, since as a bloc, the EU is consistently divided down the middle on GMO crops and foods.

The Commission's environment department is now expected to resubmit draft decisions for lifting the national GMO bans to the EU-25, following a reassessment of each ban's scientific justification by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

EFSA is expected to give its opinion on the bans very soon.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas usually declines to be drawn on his plans for the national bans. But officials and industry observers expect him to bow to WTO pressure and demonstrate to the complainants in the case -- Argentina, Canada and the United States -- that he is taking action on GMOs.

"Let's see what they (EFSA) have to say first," he told reporters on Friday in reponse to a question on his intentions.

PRODUCTS MOSTLY WITHDRAWN

In the meantime, the companies manufacturing the particular GMO products that were the subject of the original bans have withdawn several of them from the market.

One senior Commission official said the companies had now withdrawn most of the products in any case, with only two remaining -- both relating to the bans in force in Austria.

Austria has banned two GMO maize varieties: one in 1997 and the other in 1999. The first was against MON 810 maize made by US biotech giant Monsanto and the second against T25 maize made by German drugs and chemicals group Bayer.

As last June's meeting showed, an EU order for a government to lift its national GMO ban can prove extremely unpopular.

This is especially true in countries such as Austria where opinion is strongly opposed to biotech foods and there is a strong movement to set up GMO-free zones.

Not only that, to try to do this to the current holder of the EU's rotating six-month presidency might run the risk of attracting a lot of sympathy from other EU governments -- meaning the Commission might face a second embarrassing defeat.

One solution could be to wait until after Austria's EU presidency runs out at the end of June and Finland takes the helm, officials suggested. But to wait for too long could also be seen as "undue delay" by Argentina, Canada and the United States and possibly spark more complaints at the WTO, they said.


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