The enforcing body, to be known as the European Network of GMO Laboratories (ENGL), will be responsible for testing food, feed, seed and environmental samples for the presence of GMOs.

There are more than 45 laboratories in the network, whose aim is to harmonize test methods, sampling strategies, and analytical techniques across Europe by exchanging information between experts, says ENGL chairman, Guy Van den Eede. It has taken some time for the network to come to fruition. "Spontaneous collaboration and clustering has been going on for two years," said Van den Eede, who is confident that the formalized network will be "a great success."

The Council of Agriculture Ministers agreed on proposals to tighten current GMO labeling requirements on 28th November 2002. "With the political agreement on the proposal, we have taken an important step towards offering consumers a real choice when it comes to GMOs," said Mariann Fischer Boel, president of the Council and the Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries. "This is an important victory for the European consumers," she added.

These proposals will now be presented to the European Parliament, together with those of European Environment Ministers who are meeting next week to reach a common position on traceability and labeling of GMOs. The European Parliament is expected to vote on the proposals in the first half of 2003.

If they are passed into legislation, the proposals will have four main implications for GM-product marketing in the EU. First, GMO-based animal feed would be subject to the same processes of approval and labeling as is GM food. Second, all products containing more than 0.9% GMOs would need labeling to reflect this. Third, products containing up to 0.5% of unauthorized, adventitious GMOs would not need to be labeled for the next three years (as long as the relevant GMOs have undergone a favourable risk assessment), and finally, products derived from GMOs would have to be labeled, including those that contain barely detectable amounts of DNA, such as refined oils.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FOE) both broadly welcomed the proposals, but nevertheless felt that the thresholds were too high. "We're concerned about the proposal to allow 0.5% contamination [for unapproved GMOs] for three years," said an FOE spokesperson. "We would urge the Council of Ministers and the Parliament to reverse this as soon as possible."

There was also concern over whether regulation of GMOs would be satisfactory in the 'accession countries', which are due to join the EU in 2004. "It's absolutely vital that an equivalent regulatory process is put in place in accession countries as soon as possible, so that we don't see agricultural land in those countries being exploited by biotech companies," said an FOE spokesperson.

The need for effective regulation in an expanding Europe was also urged by Simon Barber, director of the Plant Biotechnology Unit at EuropaBio, the European Association for Bioindustries.

"In a Europe of 15 member states, a consistent set of rigorous safety assessment standards across Europe, coordinated and managed by one central body, is important," said Barber. "But after enlargement, in a Europe of 27 [member states], it will become a matter of necessity."

ENGL is now poised to take up the task of enforcing these thresholds, which the coordinating body - the EU's Joint Research Center - concedes will be "technically demanding."

A series of seminars at a meeting this afternoon in Brussels addressed several problems that ENGL member laboratories must face. These include choosing suitable methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis, and controls, to use, finding the best way to sample what could be massive quantities of a product, and determining which databases and bioinformatics technologies will most efficiently identify GMOs.

The first official meeting of ENGL is taking place this week in Brussels. In addition to member laboratories from across the EU, several accession countries will also be present as observers.

"Only when all stakeholders collaborate worldwide, can a system be put in place allowing the biotechnology industrial community to develop higher yielding crops or more nutritious food products, and ensure consumers' wellbeing," said a spokesperson for the Joint Research Center.

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