Germany ducks out of GMO controversy

Date: 08/04/1999

By Simon Coss

THE German presidency's reluctance to discuss controversial plans to update the EU's approval procedures for genetically modified crops means new rules are unlikely to be agreed before next summer, according to officials.

Environmental experts say the European Commission's proposals to update the 1990 directive (90/220), which sets out the licensing procedures for new GM products, have "hardly been discussed at all under the German presidency".

Many were surprised by Bonn's decision to take the proposals off the agenda of last month's meeting of EU environment ministers, as member states had originally been expected to reach preliminary agreement on the plan at that meeting.

The GM crop proposal is now scheduled to be discussed at the next ministerial meeting in June, but many insiders believe member states will simply hold a round-table debate on the draft directive and put off a decision yet again. They predict that EU governments will not reach a 'common position' on 90/220 until some time in the autumn, after Finland has taken over the presidency of the Union.

This draft deal would then need to be passed on to the European Parliament for further scrutiny, with MEPs likely to demand a series of changes to the text agreed by governments. The Parliament has already made it clear that it wants to see a far stricter GM crop-licensing regime than most governments.

If both sides stick to their guns, the Council of Ministers and Parliament would have to convene 'conciliation talks' to try to thrash out a mutually acceptable compromise - a process which is unlikely to be completed before the middle of next year.

Critics say that if Bonn had shown more enthusiasm for the proposed changes to the directive, it might have been possible to get a final agreement on the plan before the end of this year.

On the face of it, Germany's reluctance to push the issue of GM crop approvals during its six-month stint at the EU helm is hard to understand, given that German Green Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin might have been expected to press hard for progress on such an ecologically charged issue.

The European Green Group, of which Trittin's party is a member, called for an EU-wide moratorium on the cultivation of all GM crops at its congress in Paris last month.

But many insiders argue that his party's hardline stance on genetically modified products could well be the main reason why Trittin has shied away from forcing the issue, as he has to reconcile the Greens' demands for tough action with the more cautious approach likely to be favoured by his Social Democrat coalition partners.

" My guess is that Trittin feels he would not be able to get his party to agree to any deal that is acceptable to his government," said one official.