Civil society groups have been voicing concerns about the upcoming Euro-American trade deal the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) since it was announced three years ago.

The list of worries includes companies being able to constrain public policy; the potential for weaker consumer and health and safety standards; and the secrecy around the negotiations. Genetically modified (GM) products are one subject on the table, since they fall within TTIP’s broader remit to tackle areas where the US and EU approaches are furthest apart and have therefore been ignored by previous efforts to harmonise regulations. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the potential effect on how GM is regulated is of serious concern.

In the US, the share of GM crops, particularly maize and soybeans, has grown steadily over the years – even though support for the technology is not universal. The US has no specific legislation over GM crops, but approves them either through the Food and Drug Administration or via national environmental policy processes, depending on the variety and purpose.

Approvals use a science-based risk assessment, which focuses on whether scientists have identified sufficient risks to justify a ban. Although the federal authorities are the most important in this area, municipal authorities also have jurisdiction over GM to some extent, and some Californian municipalities have banned cultivation, for example. On the other hand, attempts at both federal and state level to force consumer products to carry GM labels have failed.

The European Approach

In the EU, applications to approve new crops go to the relevant member state and are then passed to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The EFSA makes a recommendation to the European Commission (EC), which in turn makes a recommendation that is subject to a vote by the member states. These recommendations are based on the precautionary principle – meaning that approvals might be refused if the science is not sufficiently certain about the level of risk involved.

As things stand, only one GM crop has EU approval for cultivation. Imports of consumer products and animal feeds with GM ingredients are permitted, but they must be labelled if the GM content is above 0.9%; and non-GM foods and feeds can display labels signalling that they are GM free.

The reason why so few GM products are permitted is that strong opposition in some member states, including Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Italy, led the EC to suspend its approval processes in 1998. To get around this, new regulations introduced last April include opt-out measures so that even if a product is approved at EU level, individual member states can still decide not to allow cultivation or use the product in food or animal feeds in their national territory. This is designed to break the deadlock and allow more pro-GM areas like Spain, Portugal and the English part of the UK to take up these products.

These changes to the rules are linked to a World Trade Organisation (WTO) 2006 ruling against the EU’s approach to granting GM approvals, following pressure from US farming groups and GM manufacturers. The WTO found that most EU member states were unduly slow to deal with approval applications for new GM crops and that a previous pan-EU moratorium on new applications contravened the rules of international trade.