'Frankenfoods' set to keep EU-US trade row simmering

By CATHERINE FIELD Herald correspondent

PARIS - Just when the European Union and the United States have ended a big confrontation over steel along comes another row, this time over genetically modified food, that seems set to keep trade friction at a dangerous level.

A vote by EU members today is likely to maintain a de-facto ban on GM crops, a decision that is bound to anger Washington, whose farmers are the world's biggest growers of these plants, just as it will delight Europe's powerful green movement, which blasts them as "Frankenfoods".

Sources in Brussels say the standing committee for the food chain, a panel of representatives from the 15 member-states where the vote will take place, is deeply split and there will not be a majority under the EU's voting system to overturn the moratorium.

That result will dismay the EU's Executive Commission, which has been urging the public towards accepting GM foods, on the basis of a string of scientific studies and a toughening of European laws.

European Health Commissioner David Byrne last week waded into the debate, calling on Europeans to assess food safety on the basis of knowledge rather than fear.

"If we fail to make progress, there is a very real danger that an anti-science agenda may take root in European society, leading to a society hampered and restricted by a collective neurosis," Byrne said.

Defenders of GM crops say there is no evidence of a threat to health or the environment.

But opponents say it is still far too early to say this for sure.

The de-facto moratorium on importing and commercially cultivating GM crops in the EU has been in place since 1999.

It was initiated by Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg, later joined by Austria and Belgium.

The way towards lifting the ban was opened earlier this year when ministers approved two EU-wide laws on labelling and tracing GM ingredients in food.

"We have the toughest regulatory framework [for GM organisms] in the world," says Byrne's spokesman, Beate Gminder.

Washington, though, says the ban and the directives are nothing less than protectionism and has filed suit at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Monday's vote focuses specifically on a corn, Bt-11, which has had genes inserted to it to make it resistant to herbicides and pesticides, thus offering cost savings to farmers.

It was invented by a Swiss firm, Syngenta, and is grown in the United States for tinned sweetcorn and popcorn.

The Brussels sources say that Germany will abstain in the vote, while Austria, Denmark, France and Italy are likely to vote against.

Thus there would not be at least 62 out of the 87 votes, as required under the EU system which shares out votes according to national population, to approve Bt-11.

In that event, the issue would be handed over to EU ministers, and if they fail to approve Bt-11, the final decision would be shunted back to the European Commission.

That would put the EU executive between a rock and a hard place: between a public that, opinion polls say, remains fiercely opposed to GM crops - and a United States gunning for revenge after backing down last week on its tariffs on steel imports.