GE Food & Crop Ban in EU To Remain for Another Two Years

EU: GMO BAN TO REMAIN PLACE FOR ANOTHER TWO YEARS
19 October. International Trade Daily

The current EU moratorium on approval of genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) in place in the European Union likely will last another two years,
the European Commission said on October 18.

The commission had hoped that a proposal to have companies voluntarily
implement new, strict traceability and labeling proposals would overcome the
blockage of GMO applications that has been in place for more than two years
but an overwhelming majority of EU members rejected the plan. The United
States has threatened to challenge the commission¹s controversial labeling
and traceability proposals in the World Trade Organization because it
considers them, among other things, a barrier to trade that is not based on
science.

"It was made clear to us by member states that they want to see the
traceability and labeling proposals the commission put forward in July
approved before the moratorium is lifted," said commission spokeswoman Pia
Ahrenskilde. "This basically means that the moratorium will be in place for
another two years, because that is how long it will likely take the
traceability and labeling proposals to be approved by the Council of
Ministers and the European Parliament."

The commission has tried several times to get member states to lift the
moratorium. It insists that the moratorium is illegal based on EU law
because the EU executive body should, based on the regulatory GMO approval
rules, override the EU member country objections. The EU member states
imposing the moratorium are France, Italy, Greece, Belgium, Denmark, and
Luxembourg. Significantly, it now looks as if Germany might be about to
join the antis' camp following the release by Germany's agriculture ministry
of a recent letter from Renate Künast to the Commission signalling a shift
in the country's policy toward overt support for the ban. In the letter Ms
Künast dismissed the Commission's plan as "incomprehensible and groundless"