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

The DuPont Co. has asked the European Union to approve a biotech soybean and
expects the bloc, where popular opposition to modified foods has slowed
approvals, to give the green light in about two years by Adam Mitchell.
DuPont, through its unit Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., ?is pursuing EU
approvals for all our biotech products,? Alejandro Munoz, vice president of
Pioneer?s European business, said in an e-mailed statement. He said DuPont
expects European approval of the ?Optimum GAT? trait, which makes soybeans
resistant to sprays that kill weeds, in ?early 2009.?

Biotech foods have struggled to win acceptance in the 27- nation EU, where a
?blocking minority? of countries imposed a freeze on approving new
bioengineered crops between 1999 and 2004. The World Trade Organization
ruled last year that the EU has unfairly blocked imports of genetically
engineered crops, siding with the U.S., Canada and Argentina, which said the
EU shut its market to biotech seeds from producers such as Monsanto Co.
without adequate scientific evidence of their harm.

Under EU rules, it?s up to the Parma, Italy-based European Food Safety
Authority to decide whether a gene crop poses a risk to human health.
Countries have defied its decisions, the most recent example being EU
environment ministers? refusal to take Austria and Hungary to court over
illegal restrictions on Monsanto Co.?s MON810 corn, which EFSA has approved.

EFSA has published the approval request for the soybean on its Web site,
Munoz said in the statement.

[www.delawareonline.com]