BioWorld International Correspondent

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Parliament last week insisted on tough norms for genetically modified food and feed and traceability and labeling of GM organisms. Although the move will mean tighter controls on the industry, it could at the same time open the way to a lifting of the EU's de facto moratorium on approvals of new GM crops.

The new rules - now approaching their final stage of discussion - would require business operators to provide fuller information on GMOs along the commercial chain, and extend the current EU labeling requirements beyond food products, to also cover soya or maize oil produced from GM soya or GM maize, and food ingredients produced from GMOs (such as biscuits with maize oil produced from GM maize). And the words "This product is produced from GMOs" must be displayed on labels and as part of any advertising for products covered by the new rules.

The Parliament also wants to ensure protection of conventional non-GM and organic crops from contamination - and to set tight limits on acceptable thresholds for adventitious presence of GMOs. It is reserving the right to insist on bringing the 0.9 percent for each ingredient down to 0.5 percent.

EuropaBio, the European biotech industry association, said the new rules "will impose a heavy regulatory burden on the agri-food chain, and are not all what we had wanted." But it expressed relief that the result was not even worse. It had feared regulations "that in effect would ban genetic modification from being used in agriculture, and GM products from being offered to European consumers." And the agreement "will allow the new and pending applications in the pipeline to move forward," it added.

EuroCommerce, the EU association representing the retail and wholesale trade, also welcomed the outcome of the vote as a development that would bring legal certainty to operators.

European Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström greeted the Parliament vote as "a very important step forward toward full implementation of the EU legislation on GMOs. It will reinforce our international credibility and will certainly help in building public confidence in new technologies."

Rothley Urges Action Against Members On Patent Issue

One of the leading figures in the European Parliament, German socialist Euro-MP Willi Rothley, has taken the unusual step of urging the European Union to take legal action against its own member states for failing to back biotechnology.

Rothley, who piloted the EU's 1998 directive to boost legal protection for biotechnological inventions through the Parliament and onto the statute books, is outraged that more than half the 15 EU member states have still failed to put the law into effect at national level.

"Effective patent protection for biotechnological inventions is indispensable for innovations and for research leading to significant results," he said last week. Appalled at what he sees as inaction by some member states, he has demanded that the offending countries be taken to the EU court for failing to meet their obligations.

The 1998 directive, which strengthens patent rights for biotech inventions, was supposed to be in force at national level by July 30, 2000. But Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden still have not acted. The EU's executive arm, the European Commission, delivered an official warning to them in December - but nothing has happened since then. And now some member states, including Germany, are arguing that for political reasons - often because of opposition to biotechnology among environmentalist coalition partners in the government - there is no realistic prospect of bringing the directive fully into force nationally, Rothley added.

"As the Parliament's rapporteur on this directive, I invite the European Commission to pursue legal proceedings against these countries for failure in compliance," he said. He insisted that - contrary to the hopes of some of the recalcitrant member states - a modification of the directive to take account of their national sensitivities "is envisaged neither by the European Parliament nor by the European Commission."