EU proposes member states act unilaterally on GM crops

Jul 13, 2010, 12:23 GMT

Brussels - European Union member states should be free to decide for themselves whether to allow the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on their territory, the bloc's executive said Tuesday in a bid to end a long-running deadlock over their use.

Under current rules, a majority of member states have to agree for GMOs to be planted anywhere in the EU. That has led to years of deadlock as national governments have argued over the environmental impact of such a move.

'The concrete measures adopted today will allow member states the freedom to decide on GMO cultivation ... I stress that the EU-wide authorisation system, based on solid science, remains fully in place,' said the EU's Health Commissioner, John Dalli.

The proposals, which would have to be approved by member states and the European Parliament, effectively hand back to national governments the power to decide whether to let GMOs be planted on their territory.

Earlier rules had stipulated that a member state wanting to allow GMOs on its land had to win the approval of other EU members first, but that that approval would then be valid across the bloc.

The new proposals say that if the EU's food safety agency, EFSA, decides that a specific GMO is safe, each member state will be allowed to approve or ban it, without recourse to the other members.

The proposals are meant to make it easier for the EU as a whole to approve GMOs which EFSA considers to be safe, by removing the need for member states which oppose the plants to block their deployment across the EU.

But environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth criticised the ideas, saying in a joint statement that they did not address the question of the environmental impact of GMOs.

'Individual bans cannot replace a scientifically sound EU-level safety procedure. GM contamination does not stop at national borders,' Greenpeace expert Stefanie Hundsdorfer said.