EU clashes three times in one day on GMO policy

BRUSSELS, Sep 18 (Reuters) European Union governments clashed three times today on genetically modified (GMO) foods and crops, again exposing their deep-rooted differences on biotechnology by failing to secure any agreement whatsoever.

Europe's latest GMO votes come against a backdrop of rising concern that unauthorised biotech varieties have recently found their way into Europe, with biotech rice entering EU markets from China and the United States.

The EU does not yet allow any gene-altered rice to be grown or sold on its territory.

Probably the most significant ''non-agreement'' today involved an order from the European Commission, the EU executive, for Hungary to lift its 2005 ban on planting MON 810 maize seeds marketed by US biotech giant Monsanto.

Although 14 states, represented by senior biotech experts, voted in favour of Hungary lifting its ban -- whereas only five opposed and six abstained -- this was not enough under the EU's complex weighted voting system for a consensus agreement.

The precedent for national GMO bans was first set in 1997, although Hungary, one of the bloc's biggest grain producers, was the first country in eastern Europe to ban GMO crops or foods.

Between that year and 2000, five EU countries banned specific GMOs on their territory, focusing on three maize and two rapeseed types that were approved shortly before the start of the EU's six-year moratorium on new biotech authorisations.

Then, in June 2005, the Commission tried to get all the bans scrapped but had a stinging rebuff from EU environment ministers, who rejected proposals for the five -- Austria, France, Germany, Greece and Luxembourg -- to lift their bans.

Since then, little has changed in the split of opinion and the EU's member states have for many years been unable to secure the weighted majority needed to vote through a new GMO approval.

European consumers are well known for their wariness towards GMO foods but the biotech industry insists that its products are perfectly safe and no different to conventional foods.

BIOTECH FLOWERS The draft order now goes to EU ministers for consideration provided that Europe's leading food safety EFSA reviews data submitted by Hungary earlier this month and does not change its assessment that the GMO maize is as safe as conventional maize.

If this happens, which is expected, and the ministers fail to reach a consensus agreement either to accept or reject that order, it returns to the Commission for a default rubberstamp.

''It is outrageous that the European Commission should bully Hungary into dropping its ban of a genetically modified maize,'' said Helen Holder at Friends of the Earth Europe.

''This maize is designed to produce a toxin, which may well have detrimental effects on the environment. Hungary is well within its rights to act with caution and ban it at this stage.'' Also today, EU agriculture ministers fell short of the required majority to allow imports of various GMO rapeseed types developed by German drugs and chemicals group Bayer.

Bayer's application related to industrial processing, which includes use in animal feed, for rapeseed types Ms8, Rf3 and hybrids of these two -- all engineered to resist the glufosinate-ammonium herbicide. It did not involve cultivation.

The national biotech experts also failed to agree on whether to allow imports of GMO carnations whose colour was modified.

The application for EU approval was filed to the European Commission by Florigene, one of Australia's first biotechnology companies and part of the privately owned Suntory group.

Marketed as Florigene Moonlite, the flowers are modified to produce blue pigment and also carry a herbicide-resistant gene.

Florigene's application for importing carnations as cut flowers for distribution and general sale, not for growing.

Ironically, carnations were the EU's last two GMO plant authorisations before the bloc began its six-year moratorium on new biotech approvals. Those carnation types were modified to alter flower colour and ''improve vase life''.

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