1.Stop the Crop - important cybereaction
2.Breakdown of how each country voted on GM bans
3.First vote in Council of Ministers won!
4.List of articles about the vote
5.EU urged to impose GMO limits on 'clean seeds'

NOTE: Note the pressure over contamination thresholds for seeds that's coming from ESA - the EUROPEAN SEED ASSOCIATION
http://www.euroseeds.org/home

In its lobbying for thresholds, ESA uses very carefully chosen wording to suggest GM crops are on the increase in the EU, whereas in fact they've been in substantial retreat for the past 5 years!
http://www.euroseeds.org/related/ESA_09.0190.pdf

ESA's members and associate members include:
Advanta 
Bayer CropScience
BASF
De Ruiter Seeds [Monsanto]
Groupe Limagrain [big GM interests]
Monsanto Europe
Pioneer Overseas Corporation [Dupont]
Seminis [Monsanto]
Syngenta Seeds

EXTRACT: While most member states apply the zero tolerance principle, in practice they apply different AP tolerance levels, Lucas continued. "The levels accepted are 0.1% in France, 0.5% in the UK and 0.9% in Romania." (according to Olivier Lucas of RAGT, a French breeding and seed production company) [item 5]
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1.Stop the Crop
Protect a GMO-Free Europe

Important cyber action
http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/stop-the-crop-action.html

Write to your Environment Minister.

The Council still has to vote on two more national bans in France and Greece.
There will laso be a vote later this month on whether for the first time since 1998 two new GM maize varieties (bt 11 of Syngenta and 1507 from Pioneer/ DuPont) will be approved.

The letter is already available in 6 different languages
http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/stop-the-crop-action

The text for the UK is here
http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/stop-the-crop-action/en.html
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2.Breakdown of how each country voted on GM bans

This 'European Voting Meter' (excel) shows that there were only 40 votes (out of a total possible 345) cast by Environment minsiters yesterday in favour of overturning Austria and Hungary's GM bans.
http://tiny.cc/kyrFS
or
http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/fileadmin/files/gmo-free-regions/stop_the_crop/eu_voting_meter_2_March.xls

It also shows that 29 of those 40 votes came from the United Kingdom. But the political leadership of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all overwhelmingly oppose GM crops, and have done everything they can within the powers available to ban them themselves!
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3.First vote in Council of Ministers won!
http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/stop-the-crop-action/update.html

With a bold and qualified majority of 282 votes 22 of 27 member states have rejected the EU Commission's proposal to force the waiving of the bans in Austria and Hungary of Monsanto's Mon810.

Only Great Britain, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and Estonia supported (either through yes or abstention) the Commissions proposal in the Council of Ministers on Monday 2nd in Brussels.
This is a perfect start for our campaign, which will continue to also secure the bans in France and Greece (eventually to be voted at the end of March) and to reject the approval of two new GM varieties for cultivation.

Against the the Commission and in favour of Hungary and Austria:
Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech, Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain (282, 22 countries)

In favour of the Commission proposal and against Hungary and Austria: Estonia, Finland, United Kingdom, Netherlands [abstained]  and Sweden [abstained] (63, 5 countries [40 against, 23 from abstentions])

Excellent start!

More than 17,000 [now 18,000] people have signed the letter to ministers on the first day the action is online! Keep on moving!
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4.List of news articles about the vote
http://hejdagmo.se/2009/03/03/grattis-gmo-fria-osterrike-och-ungern/
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5.EU urged to impose GMO limits on 'clean seeds' 
EurActiv, 3 March 2009
http://tiny.cc/pL2im
  
The European seed industry yesterday (2 March) called on the European Commission to come up with a "long-awaited" proposal for thresholds to label the accidental presence of GMOs in conventional seeds, arguing that their presence is in any case "unavoidable".

The lack of thresholds, the industry argues, has lead to an "inadequate patchwork of different rules in different countries" and thus to the absence of a EU single market for seeds.

The Commission's in-house experts, farmers and EU agriculture and environment ministers have all concluded over the past ten years that there is a need to establish thresholds. But while the EU executive has initiated drafts on the issue, it has yet to table an official proposal. According to sources, this is due to the personal resistance of Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas to "everything that is related to GMOs".

The "continuous failure" of the Commission to present a proposal on the issue "deprives Europe's seed industry of legal certainty, the single market and its economic future," according to the European Seed Association. The organisation further argues that the lack of thresholds for seeds is "illogical" as limits have been established for conventional food and feed products.

"Adventitious presence (AP) of GMOs in conventional seed is technically inevitable and unavoidable," said Olivier Lucas, head of scientific affairs at RAGT, a French breeding and seed production company. "Meanwhile, most member states apply [the principle of] zero tolerance to the presence of GMOs in conventional seeds," he added.

In the current situation, "our company works in total legal uncertainty," Lucas said, adding that the analytical process for detecting hazardous GMOs in traditional seeds is extremely expensive, further hampering his company's business.

Asked what kind of threshold the industry could accept, Lucas explained that the current unavoidable presence ranges from 0.1% to 0.9%. If all seeds currently produced were made legally marketable, the threshold would need to be around 0.9%. In the Commission's first draft proposal, dating from 2003, this level was considered far too high by environmental NGOs, which asked for no more than 0.1%.

While most member states apply the zero tolerance principle, in practice they apply different AP tolerance levels, Lucas continued. "The levels accepted are 0.1% in France, 0.5% in the UK and 0.9% in Romania," he explained.

Unless the EU clarifies what a "clean seed" stands for, we will have a "civil war in rural areas" over the issue, warned Thor Kofoed, chair of the Copa-Cogeca working group on seeds.

Kofoed added that if no threshold was set, certified seeds bred and produced by seed companies would become so expensive that farmers would start producing their own, without any traceability or certification on their quality or GMO content.

Last December EU Environment Ministers concluded that long-term environmental risk assessment of GMOs should be improved and member states allowed to establish GMO-free zones (EurActiv 09/12/08). Furthermore ministers agreed on the need to set Community thresholds for the presence of GMOs in conventional seeds and asked the Commission to adopt appropriate thresholds "as soon as possible".

The Commission is currently finalising impact studies on the establishement of seed thresholds.