With Europe in a stalemate over GMOs, Spain takes a close look at its policies
By Xavier Bosch
The Scientist, July 23, 2004
EU divided over GM corn
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040723/04/

When European Union agriculture ministers gathered Monday (19 July), they were again unable to come to a decision about whether to authorize imports of genetically modified (GM) "NK603" maize for human consumption. However, on the same day, the European Commission (EC) approved the marketing of the product for animal feed.

The contrasting decisions were about Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn, which is engineered to resist the company's Roundup herbicide, and received a safety approval by the European Food Safety Authority last year. Even though the EC approved the import of this corn for animal feed, implementation of this decision must wait until the equivalent approval has been granted for human consumption.

That decision is now in the hands of the EC. According to the European Union's decision-making process, if the ministers of member states fail to agree on allowing a new GM organism (GMO), then the EC””as the bloc's executive branch””may decide on an authorization. By all accounts, the commission wants to approve the corn for sale.

Not everyone is happy with this process. "This pattern of decision making by default is starting to expose the lack of credibility of [EU] authorization procedures," said Greenpeace's Eric Gall in a statement. "Most consumers don't want [GM crops], and member states have not agreed to approve them. The commission is defying democracy by pushing through these approvals to satisfy the biotech lobby and its US backers."

The political stalemate highlights continuous unease in Europe over biotech foods, despite the lifting of a de facto moratorium on GM crop approvals in May, when BT11 sweetcorn was authorized. Even Spain, which had charged ahead with GM crops, is now reconsidering its position.

Spain is the only EU country to have planted significant numbers of GM crops. The country also imports millions of tons of corn and soy from countries that grow large-scale modified crops. In a report released last August, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth said Spain had become "a big experimental field for GM crops."

"This situation is unique in the European Union, where no other country is currently growing GMOs," the report said, adding that "the Spanish government has not provided an independent assessment of the environmental, social and economical impacts of the release of GMOs in Spain."

This is now set to change. In late June, Spanish Environment Minister Cristina Narbona pledged to seek the advice of independent researchers before deciding whether the country should continue its policy of growing GM crops. "In recent years, Spain has become Europe's granary of GM corn," she stated, adding that "this is the result of a decision by the previous government to allow the growing in our country of a crop on which the scientific community has yet to form a conclusive opinion."

Friends of the Earth's Liliane Spendeler welcomed the Spanish decision. Since February last year, the former Spanish government approved 14 new varieties of GM maize, and it is estimated that some 32,000 hectares are currently cultivated in the country, she said.

"The biggest criticism is that the government has approved these products without providing any information to the society," Spendeler told The Scientist. She added that nobody knows for certain the total area planted with GM crops in Spain.

Links for this article
"Agriculture and Fisheries Ministers: 2599th Council Meeting," Council of the European Union press release, July 19, 2004.
http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/agricult/815 05.pdf

"GMOs: Commission authorises import of GM-maize for use in animal feed," European Commission press release, July 19, 2004.
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/ 04/957&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

A. Scott, "EU GM moratorium ends," The Scientist, May 21, 2004.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040521/03/

Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace, Impact of GM Corn in Spain, August 2003.
http://eu.greenpeace.org/downloads/gmo/ImpactGEcorninSpain-Eng. pdf

Spanish Environmental Ministry
http://www.mma.es/en/index.htm