Monsanto, Syngenta products fail to win wider access in the EU
Five nations win the right to keep bans on some gene-modified corn and rapeseed types allowed elsewhere in the bloc.
28/06/05 Monsanto Co, Syngenta AG and Bayer AG failed to win wider access to the Europe Union’s biotechnology market when five nations won the right to keep bans on some gene-modified corn and rapeseed types allowed elsewhere in the bloc.
Austria can retain a ban on a Monsanto corn, Germany, Luxembourg and Austria can keep restrictions on a Syngenta corn, and Austria, France and Greece can continue prohibitions on Bayer corn and rapeseed varieties because other EU nations rejected a European Commission proposal ordering the five to allow the products. The bans reflect worries that the foods, approved for EU- wide use in the 1990s, pose health threats.
The defeat for the commission may hinder new bloc-wide approvals of genetically modified foods. The commission in 2004 ended a six-year biotech moratorium that shut out companies such as Monsanto, the biggest producer in a global gene-altered crop market with sales of $4.7 billion in 2004, and Basel, Switzerland-based Syngenta, the world’s largest maker of crop chemicals.
The ministers were split over a separate commission proposal to give EU-wide approval to another Monsanto corn type. Austria is blocking a Monsanto corn authorized by the EU in 1998 for food, feed, cultivation and processing, and it, Germany and Luxembourg prohibit a Syngenta corn approved in 1997 for the same purposes.
Austria also bans a Bayer corn approved by the EU in 1998 for all four uses. France and Greece prohibit a Bayer rapeseed approved in 1998 for import and processing, and France bans a Bayer rapeseed authorized in 1996 for seed production.
The US, Argentina and Canada, the world’s three biggest growers of gene-modified seeds, have complained to the World Trade Organization about restrictions in the 25-nation EU. Biotech foods range from grain to tomatoes whose genetic material has been altered to add beneficial traits such as resistance to weed-killing chemicals.
Opponents cite risks such as human resistance to antibiotics and the development of “superweeds” impervious to herbicides, limiting the number allowed in the EU to 34 until last year’s approvals. More than 60% of European citizens probably wouldn’t eat foods with genetic modifications.
