RUSSELS,
Dec 9 (Reuters) - European Union environment ministers on Monday agreed new
controls on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that could eventually lead the
15-member bloc to reopen its markets to GM foods. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/09/international/europe/09WIRE-EURO.html
RUSSELS,
Dec 9 (Reuters) - European Union environment ministers on Monday agreed new
controls on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that could eventually lead the
15-member bloc to reopen its markets to GM foods.
"We have got a majority in favour of a solution," Danish Environment Minister Hans Christian Schmidt said at the end of a meeting of EU ministers in Brussels that he chaired.
The new rules require ships carrying bulk grain to declare whether the shipments contain GM products. The regulation now requires the agreement of the European Parliament.
The EU has had a virtual ban on most GM crops since 1999 when politicians demanded tougher regulations to ensure GMOs do not pose environmental or health risks.
The United States has said the ban is illegal, but has so far refrained from launching a trade case against the EU.
The new rules will require GM shipments to carry a code number which identifies the origin of the crops, enabling products to be withdrawn from the food chain if problems arise.
Britain and the Netherlands voted against the rules, saying they would prove to costly for bulk shippers as some mixing of GM and non-GM grain is inevitable, but they were outvoted.
"We can now give consumers a choice between products that contain GMOs and those that don't," Schmidt told his colleagues in a meeting that was beamed to journalists by closed circuit television.
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