(Updates with Bayer vote, environmentalist reaction)
BRUSSELS (AFP)--European Union nations refused Monday to force
Austria and Hungary to allow the cultivation of Monsanto
genetically modified maize, defying a call from the European
Commission, the Czech E.U. presidency said.
Only four of the 27 European Union nations - the U.K., Finland,
the Netherlands and Sweden - supported the E.U. executive's bid to
force the two member states to lift their ban.
E.U. environment ministers, meeting in Brussels, voted on a call
from the commission to lift provisional bans on growing U.S.
biotech giant Monsanto Co's (MON) MON810 GM maize - super resistant
against insects - that Austria and Hungary have imposed.
The move will further upset the U.S., which accuses Europe of
using environmental issues as an excuse for protectionism amid
disputes ranging from biotechnology to greenhouse gas
emissions.
In a separate vote the E.U. nations also agreed that Austria
would be allowed to prohibit the cultivation of German chemical and
pharmaceutical group Bayer AG's (BAY.XE) T25 GM maize.
However the European Commission believes the bans are
unjustified as scientific testing has determined the maize is safe
for consumers as well as the environment.
Asked whether the commission had been embarrassed by the vote, a
spokeswoman said merely that the E.U. executive "notes the vote of
the member states."
However she insisted that the move to force Austria and Hungary
to drop their bans must continue.
"We can't drop it," said spokeswoman Barbara Helferrich after
the vote.
If science says there is no evidence that the product is
dangerous then "there is no reason" to go against it, she said.
"We now are in a position to either come forward with the same
proposal, change the proposal, - but we need reasons to do so - or
change the procedure in and of itself.
"You can invoke the precaution principle but you have to prove
it at some point," she added.
France and Greece have introduced similar provisional bans on
the GM maize, but their cases will be discussed by the E.U.
environment ministers later in the year.
Greenpeace hailed the vote as "a victory for the environment,
farmers and consumers, and a major embarrassment for the
commission."
"What part of 'no' does the commission not understand?" asked
the group's GMO policy director for the E.U., Marco Contiero.
"Austrian and Hungarian scientific authorities have recently
supplied new evidence supporting their national bans showing that
MON810 maize, the only GMO currently cultivated in the E.U., is
likely to have harmful environmental effects," Greenpeace said in a
statement.
"The protection of the environment and public health should
always come before the financial interests of a handful of
agro-chemical companies," it added.
Friends of the Earth Europe GMO campaign coordinator Helen
Holder was clear as to what Brussels should do now.
"The commission must now abandon its unpopular proposals once
and for all and get down to the real work of improving GMO risk
assessments in the EU, as Ministers have requested," she said.
"The effects of Monsanto's genetically modified maize MON 810,
which is engineered to produce a toxin to kill insects, are
uncertain and controversial."