New EU Moratorium on GM Cultivation

New EU Moratorium on GM Cultivation

Friends of the Earth Europe -- This article says that EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has ordered a temporary halt on all new applications for genetically modified (GM) crop cultivation until the issues of coexistence and adventitious presence are addressed at the European level.

According to the article, the temporary hold has the potential to last a long time, as it looks unlikely that either issue will be resolved this year. EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has yet to decide on possible new measures regarding the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops.

Meanwhile, the article says that the issue of GM "contamination" of non-GM grain is a long-running dilemma for the European Commission with "no solution in sight."

The article says that there has been no (entirely) new approval of a GM crop for cultivation in the EU since the beginning of the bloc's de fact moratorium on genetically modified organism (GMO)approvals in 1998.

The de facto moratorium ended last year with the approval of a GM crop for use in food and feed, but not for cultivation.

The article can be viewed online at the link below.

http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/publications/Biotech_July_2005.pdf

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