A recent EU vote allows states to cultivate GM crops, with the first expected to be grown in the UK in 2017, but big hurdles remain
Scientists, politicians and activists expect the first commercially cultivated GM crops to be planted in England in 2017 after an EU vote for new GM crop rules last week, but the battle for biotechnology is far from done.
GM serves as a proxy and arena for a dizzying range of debates in the EU splitting industry and environmentalists. These cover trade deals, agricultural herbicide use, subsidiarity (dealing with social issues at a local level), evidence-based science and the precautionary principle.
With an average GM crop costing between $200m-$300m to bring to market, and potential returns that run into billions, lobbyists on all sides are sharpening their pencils in the corridors of Brussels.
The first item on their agenda may be a commission review of GM authorisation rules expected by May. The EU’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, ordered the rethink into ways that GM authorisations could be blocked after states criticised the current need for a qualified majority of EU leaders at Council meetings.
The health and food safety commissioner, Vytenis Anriukaitis, has already alarmed biotech industries by suggesting that current legislation creates “conflict” because it ignores sovereignty and subsidiarity.
There are also trade issues, with the US viewing EU regulation on GM as a trade barrier. Negotiators have exerted pressure for a freer regime in talks on the Transatlantic free trade deal known as TTIP, and the EU’s agriculture commissioner, Phil Hogan, felt obliged to pledge last week that Europe would continue to label GM products under any future TTIP deal.
The new GM rules which MEPs voted in favour of last week should come into force this spring, but they cut two ways. They allow countries to grow GM crops that have first been authorised by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa), but enable states to ban single GM crops on the basis of evidence that does not contradict an Efsa opinion.
