BioWorld International Correspondent

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Short-term prospects for a European breakthrough that would allow genetically modified organisms more freely onto the market remain dim, noted biotech industry executives and pro-biotech politicians.

"Europeans' knowledge of GMOs is very limited, and 50 percent of Europeans think that if they eat GM fruit, this will modify their bodies," said Denmark's minister for the environment, Connie Hedegaard, in a debate organized by a Brussels think tank in late February.

Simon Barber, director at the industry association, EuropaBio, recognized that at present, policy in Europe is being driven by panic. "Public knowledge of agriculture is very limited," he said.

On Feb. 27, Markos Kyprianou, the senior European official responsible for health, and who has a reputation for extreme caution over GM technology, announced that in 2008 he would be spearheading the development of a revised legal framework for risk assessment of GM food and feed. "Increased use of GM crops worldwide results in a correspondingly higher number of applications for authorizations of GM food and feed," he said, evincing little enthusiasm for the process.

In 2008 the EU's basic regulation will have been in place for five years, he said, and "the expertise gained will allow a legal framework for risk assessment to be adopted. Implementing measures such as authorizations, control strategies and safeguards will be adopted as needed."

The new chairman of the European Parliament's powerful committee on environment and public health, Miroslav Ouzky, told BioWorld International last week that he was very cautious about GM technology.

"I understand both sides of the problem," he said, adding that it was not a battle between science and obscurantism. "Scientists don't agree among themselves, either," he said, citing anecdotal evidence from anti-GM scientists to support his position. He made clear that his reservations extended beyond questions of GM crops, leaving him undecided - but evidently tending toward prudence - on exploitation of knowledge of the human genome in general, and of stem cells in particular.

"I'm not against research," he said. "But there must be very tight controls."

Meanwhile, battle lines are being drawn for the European Parliament debate on March 14 regarding the future of biotechnology in agriculture. European campaigning groups that oppose GM technology are making a final bid to sway the parliament against any pro-industry conclusions.

"This is our last chance of persuading parliament to reject this proposal. It has gone through a number of changes over the last months, but still represents a decidedly pro-GMO document," said Jadwiga Lopata, one of the critics of GM technology. She said the vote is hugely important: "If we were to get a split parliament, it will send a strong signal to the European Commission that any further pro-GMO legislation will not be well received. And if we achieve a parliamentary rejection, it will put a huge brake on GMO developments," she predicted.

At the same time, the European biotech industry is preparing to take advantage of the major BioVision conference in Lyon, France, on Tuesday to drive home a message that "the EU needs to wake up from its political inertia." It will cite "the proven benefits" of green biotechnology for farmers, the environment, consumers and society. And it will lament the fact that "despite a very stringent regulatory system for the assessment, approval and monitoring of agricultural biotech products put in place in Europe, there are still endless debates between opponents and advocates. Such debates result in a highly politicized European process for product authorization that is very slow and in some instances prohibits the placing on the market of safe and beneficial products."