MEPs approve licensing of GM crops
New genetically modified foods could be licensed for use in the European Union by the end of the year following a vote of Euro-MPs in Strasbourg.
Clearance for more than a dozen GM crops is on hold in Brussels, pending updated EU licensing laws not due in force until 2003.
The new rules approved by MEPs could mean companies being granted licences much sooner, as the Euro-MPs have voted to end a moratorium imposed in 1998.
Labour MEP David Bowe, who steered the new GM licensing laws through the European Parliament said: "This is a unique agreement. We are cutting through red tape because industry cannot wait forever. We must keep Europe in the fast lane on biotechnology.
"With this vote consumers can have confidence that GM products licensed for sale in the EU have met the toughest standards in the world."
Environmental group Friends of the Earth said the moratorium should stay because the accord was not enough to protect consumers, farmers and the environment from GMO pollution which would contaminate organic and conventional farms.
Neither does the deal make biotech companies liable for any damage caused by GMOs, the FoE said. France, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark, Greece and Austria have made clear they will not budge on GMOs until traceability and labelling laws are firmly in place.
Those requirements will be delivered by the Commission this spring, according to Mr Bowe, in plenty of time for 14 GM crops currently in the European Commission pipeline, including potatoes, tomatoes, maize and processed oils, to be licensed and put on the market years earlier than expected.
