EU officials due to meet next week to discuss rules on labelling and traceability of GM products have scheduled further discussion due to major disagreements among EU member states on the issue.
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The EU is in danger of being brought before the World Trade Organisation by the US if the EU does not lift its moratorium on GMOs. But the six EU states that refuse to lift the moratorium: Austria, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg, will continue to refuse unless rules on labelling and traceability are put in place.
Many of the disagreements are concerned with the labelling of GM products. The European Commission has proposed that products containing more than 1% GM ingredients should be labelled as such. The European Parliament, which has the backing of several EU countries, wants the threshold to be zero. The US authorities, however, consider even 1% to be unworkable. They consider Japan’s legislation of 5% to be better.
France wants the legislation to even apply to pet food.
The US has threatened to bring the EU before the WTO, because it believes the moratorium is costing US corn growers US$200m a year in lost imports, reported the Associated Press.
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