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EU biotech experts have withdrawn approval for five genetically modified
(GMO) products no longer in commercial use, including the first GMO crop
grown in Europe, the EUs executive Commission said, March 2007.

Three of the products were cited in a dispute filed against the
European Union by major biotech growers Argentina, Canada and the United
States at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The Commission, which negotiates trade policy on behalf of the EU, has
said lt will not appeal against the 2006 ruling, where the WTO found
that the EU had operated a de facto moratorium on GMO products, breaking
global trade rules.

No applications to renew EU licences for the five GMOs were expected
from their manufacturing companies before the products' authorisation
expired on April 18, the Commission said.

"If the companies responsible for these GMOs wanted to continue
marketing them in the EU after that date, they had to submit an
application to the Commission,' it said.

"For the 5 GMOs affected no applications for renewal are expected. This
is due to the fact that they are no longer being used and the companies
no longer have any commercial interest in them," the Commission said in
a statement.

The live GMOs are Bt-176 maize, the first biotech crop grown in Europe
and engineered by Swiss agrochemicals company Syngenta , a maize hybrid
known as GA21/MON81O made by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto and three GMO
rapeseed types marketed by German drugs and chemicals group Bayer --
Ms1Rf1, Ms1Rf2 and Topas 19/2.

Although all stocks of food and feed derived from these GMOs had been
used up, the possibility remained that some food and feed products
within EU markets might still contain trace amounts of the GMOs, the
Commission said.

Each company would therefore be required to identify and withdraw seeds
of any of these GMOs from the market, it said.

Since this could not be achieved overnight, a 0.9 percent threshold for
the accidental presence of the five GMOs would be allowed in food and
feed products for the next five years.

"lt is an absolute disgrace that European taxpayers money was spent
defending a trade dispute about products that biotech companies were
about to withdraw," said Helen Holder, GMO campaigner at Friends of the
Earth Europe in a statement.

"The biotech industry should be forced to pay the EU compensation for
the time and money they have wasted," she said.

While European consumers are known for their wariness towards GMO foods,
the biotech industry insists that its products are perfectly safe and no
different to conventional foods. Europes hostility to GMO foods is
unfounded, it says.

[www.reuters.com]