www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

The Environment Ministry in Bucharest is due to push for public debate two
new initiatives on genetically modified food - one for the introduction of
GM soy testing and one for tests of GM plum trees. The Ministry recently
authorized tests on GM corn. The moves come as agricultural experts are
pushing hard to make Romanian citizens understand that GM crops are not
harmful, March 2007.

But environmental militants are redirecting the debate towards studies
they say may help stop the expansion of non-conventional crops, while
modified corn is the only GM plant allowed in the EU agriculture.

Romania is facing backbreaking decisions on aligning its agricultural
legislation to the EU's and applying it wherever possible. But major
companies are also pushing hard to have GM crops allowed at large-scale
level.

"We're doing what the EU laws says and it says very clearly what can be
cropped and what not", Environment Ministry official Catalin Cheran told
HotNews.ro.

A short look over all notifications submitted on GMOs on EU territory
(http://gmoinfo.jrc.it/gmp_browse.aspx) shows most come from US corporations
such as Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta. Several other local players - state
universities and companies covering national territories alone - are also
profiled, but in a much lesser measure.

Pioneer, Monsanto and Syngenta have submitted documents asking to test GM
crops in Romania. If applied, the groups may start putting up crops for
testing GM soy, corn and plum trees.

They're also claiming that food is already insufficient and that "a solution
to these crisis is the use of biotechnology in agriculture", as Clive James,
a GMO supporter, put it during a Bucharest conference on March 2.

But anti-GM campaigners are also doing their best in preventing such
pressure. Shortly after Hungary obtained an exemption from regulations on GM
corn crops, a study was published claiming that GM corn damages human
health.

And for the first time since GM corn was authorized for food production, a
study recently published by Professor Gilles Eric Seralini of the University
of Caen claims the only EU-approved GMO used on testing animals provides
signs of toxicity in at liver and kidney level.

[www.hotnews.ro]