Europe's food safety chief said on Thursday she did not believe there was
any need to change the European Union's "zero tolerance" policy on
unauthorised genetically modified material in food imports.
EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said her team believed any
potential trade problems were sufficiently addressed by one import permit
that was recently issued by the EU executive, and a second permit that was
in the pipeline.

"My cabinet advises me that there is no need at this point to change the
zero tolerance because we have already approved one event, we are in the
process of approving a second event.

"With these approvals there will be no problem regarding trading," Vassiliou
said, speaking on the sidelines of an EU agriculture conference in Limassol,
Cyprus.

The EU has approved a string of GM products, mainly maize types, by default
legal rubberstamps since 2004.

But so far, it does not permit the presence of other GMOs approved and
cultivated in other non-EU countries, in even tiny amounts, until the EU has
also approved that specific product.

Vassiliou said her cabinet would soon be comparing notes with the cabinet of
Mariann Fischer Boel, the EU's agriculture commissioner.

"If in the future, and after we compare figures, we see that there is (a
need to change the policy) we have already done our homework and would be
ready to do that," she said.

Europe's livestock industry has been pushing for the European Commission to
propose changes to existing EU policy, claiming that the sector will face
hefty losses next year if "zero tolerance" continues. Any such proposal,
however, would also have to be approved by the bloc's 27 agriculture
ministers.

"We are not changing the zero tolerance, but we are trying to find a
practical way of estimating the presence of GMOs," Vassiliou said.

Green groups are lobbying hard for the EU not to change its position on
unauthorised GMOs. It says warnings are industry scaremongering designed to
foist more biotech products onto European markets.
www.checkbiotech.org