The European Union must accept more genetically modified foods to
avoid renewed complaints about market barriers at the World Trade
Organization, the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson said.
Any EU delay over the approval of genetically modified crops declared
safe by scientists risks prompting legal challenges from farm exporters like
the United States, Canada and Argentina, Mandelson said. In a case brought
by these three countries, the WTO ruled last year that a 1998-2004 EU ban on
new genetically altered foods was illegal.

The bloc ended the six-year moratorium after tightening labeling rules
and creating a food agency to screen biotech applications. Since then, the
EU has approved the import of some genetically modified products for food
and feed use via a slow-track procedure and has yet to endorse any requests
for cultivation.

"If we fail to implement our own rules, or implement them
inconsistently, we can - and probably will - be challenged," Mandelson said.

He also said the EU may undermine European industries like livestock
by falling behind in endorsing products in the global biotech crop market.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-country EU, faces
resistance to genetically modified foods from some member states, including
Austria and Greece, and from more than half of European consumers, according
to surveys.

The EU biotech-food approvals since 2004 resulted from the commission
acting on its own after member states failed to muster a majority for or
against. The delays followed EU scientific opinions that the products were
safe.

The commission aims for the EU to approve a request to plant a
genetically modified potato developed by BASF, Barbara Helfferich, a
commission environment spokeswoman, said. The approval would be the first EU
authorization of a biotech product for cultivation in about eight years.

The Amflora potato, altered to increase its starch content, failed to
win enough backing from member-state regulators in December and is going to
EU ministers for a verdict and would go back to the commission for a
decision should the ministers be split.


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