Bush baits Brussels over GM crops

The US government is to launch a trade war over GM crops in an attempt to force the European Union to back down in its tough stance against GM.

The Independent on Sunday has learnt that the US trade representative, Robert Zoellick, is putting in a complaint to the World Trade Organisation claiming that the EU moratorium on GM imports and crop-testing is a restraint of trade. His action is being backed by Monsanto, the US biotechnology group that has been at the centre of the development of GM crops.

It is frustrated by the byzantine structure of product authorisation in the EU, which has effectively stopped the development and testing of GM crops in Europe.

Under the existing structure seven EU states – France, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Luxembourg and Belgium – have joined together since 1998 to block all new product authorisations for GM oil-seed rape, maize, sugar beet and the like being imported from the US. Only US soya, which was approved prior to 1998, is allowed to be sold in the EU.

The European Commission has already admitted that this "de facto moratorium" on the import of GM products from the US, which has been in place since 1998, is probably illegal. It is planning to replace it with an updated, and likely to be tougher, general directive on GM products.

This will be discussed at an EU Council of Environment Ministers, due to be held on 17 October.

A source in the biotechnology industry said: "We are praying that Margaret Beckett [Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] attends rather than Michael Meacher [the environment minister] as she is much more sympathetic to our cause and will stand up against the hard line taken in Europe."

The UK has the softest stance on GM in the EU, and is the only country where widespread GM crop tests are ongoing. This testing programme ran into controversy earlier this month when it emerged that the wrong seeds were planted at 14 sites being run by Aventis Crops Sciences, a subsidiary of the German chemical group, Bayer.

The 17 October meeting has been given extra spice by the intervention of the US. It has told the World Trade Organisation that the blocking of new product approvals on GM products is a restraint of trade, and wants sanctions brought against the EU. At the same time the WTO is considering a complaint by the EU, which says that US tariffs on steel also break international trade rules. The Bush government softened its steel stance late last week.

The action by Mr Zoellick has been seen by the GM crops industry as an about- turn by the Bush administration, which is far less sympathetic to the industry than the previous Clinton government. The US intervention, however, has not been entirely welcomed by the GM industry.

Paul Rylott, head of bioscience at Aventis Crop Sciences, said that "it may help to lance the boil in the short term" but that the EU was getting to the point where it would consider softening its stance on GM. "We'd prefer the debate to go forward with a consensus rather than being steam-rollered," he added.