US ‘pushing GMOs into EU via back door’

Date: 22/05/03

By Karen Carstens

GREEN groups have accused Romania of allowing the cultivation of banned genetically modified (GM) crops, amid claims that the United States is targeting central European countries to push GMOs into the EU "through the back door".

They claim that farmers in the candidate country have been growing GM soybeans, potatoes, sugar beet and maize since at least 1999.

In a new report, the groups brand Romania, which is expected to join the EU along with neighbouring Bulgaria in 2007, as a "dumping ground for genetically engineered crops" due to an "absence of a transparent regulatory framework and chaos within Romania's seed registration body, ISTIS".

Around half of the 100,000 plus hectares of soybean crops grown in Romania in 2002 were of the 'Roundup Ready' brand, supplied by US biotech giant Monsanto, they claim.

With a de facto moratorium on the cultivation of new GM crops in the EU in place since 1998, Romania is thereby flouting - and thus failing to adapt its own policies to - EU law, the groups add.

"If Romania gambles on genetically engineered agriculture, it might not only find itself without customers for its food in the EU, but this would also destroy efforts being made to produce organic food," warned Dan Craioveanu of pro-organic farming lobby Bioterra.

Iza Kruszewska, of the Amsterdam-based Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED), said that Bulgaria - as well as Russia, Ukraine and several other central and eastern European nations - has also been targeted by major US biotech firms as "easy" markets for their GM crops.

"What we have found is that the US is incredibly active in the candidate countries," she said, adding that Washington is "trying to push GMOs into the EU through the back door".

"The [ten] countries due to join the EU next year are more cautious and generally following the EU line," she added.

Hungary, Poland and Slovenia in particular have been careful about sticking to current EU policies on green biotech products.

In fact, Slovenia has pledged to form a 'GM-free organic agricultural zone' with neighbouring regions in Austria and Italy.

A separate report, due to be unveiled in Brussels next Tuesday (27 May) on the eve of a European Parliament conference on the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops, explores the difficulties faced by candidate countries in harmonizing their own legislation with "moving targets" - a reference to the evolving status of Brussels' GM approvals system.

Since January, 19 new applications from member states have been filed with the European Commission for the right to cultivate or import new GM products.

The applications have set the wheels of the Commission approvals system back in motion for the first time since the moratorium came into effect.

EU officials have indicated that the moratorium could be lifted by early next year, when new regulations on the traceability and labelling of GM products are expected to enter into force.

Yet, despite such assurances, the US, along with Canada, Argentina and Egypt, this month filed a complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the EU moratorium.

Iza Kruszewska, of ANPED, also voiced concern about the adoption of a new law last week by the US linking American GM food aid to African nations with access to life-saving medicines to fight HIV and AIDS.

Gabi Paun, of the Romanian group Ecosens, called on the government "to introduce a moratorium on all releases of GMOs until a national biosafety framework is in place which enables harmonization of EU policy on GMOs".

According to claims made by Green groups, the United States is targeting central European countries with GM crops and food.