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

EU biotech experts will discuss three applications this week to approve new
genetically modified (GMO) plants but are unlikely to break the bloc's
longstanding deadlock on GMO foods, officials said on Wednesday.
The applications, to authorize two modified maize hybrids and one GMO sugar
beet, do not relate to cultivation in Europe.

Experts representing the EU's 25 national governments will discuss and
possibly vote on the applications. But they were not expected to reach the
required consensus under the EU's weighted voting system either to approve
or reject them, officials said.

If this happens at Thursday's meeting, the paperwork will be escalated to EU
agriculture ministers for debate at a future meeting. Normally, this has to
happen within three months.

"At the moment, I can see nothing that would not lead to a non-opinion," one
EU official said.

If the ministers cannot agree, again a likely scenario, then the European
Commission, the EU's executive arm, usually issues its own authorization
under a legal default process.

Since the EU's six-year unofficial moratorium on approving new GMO products
was lifted in 2004, the Commission has authorized a string of GMOs in this
way, outraging green groups.

For many years, EU countries have not been able to secure the majority
needed to vote through a new GMO approval. They last agreed to authorize a
new GMO product in 1998.

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

Modified maize, beet

The first maize hybrid, submitted for EU approval by U.S. biotech giant
Monsanto, is known as MON810/NK603 and designed to resist certain insects
and also glyphosate -- the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup
herbicide.

Monsanto's application relates to food and animal feed produced from the
modified plants or containing ingredients derived from those plants.

The second GMO maize, a hybrid known as 1507/NK603, has been developed to
resist certain field pests like the European corn borer, and also the
herbicides glufosinate and glyphosate.

The maize is jointly made by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of
DuPont Co., and Dow AgroSciences unit Mycogen Seeds. Their application is
for import and processing, for all food and feed uses, and all food, feed
and processed products derived from the GMO maize plants.

The GMO sugar beet, called H7-1, was developed jointly by Monsanto and
German plantbreeding company KWS SAAT AG to resist glyphosate-containing
herbicides. The application relates to food and animal feed produced from
the beet, for example sugar, syrup, dried pulp and molasses.

[www.reuters.com]