EU ministers pave way for biotech potato crops

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU farm ministers clashed on Monday on whether to approve a genetically modified (GMO) potato for growing, passing the final say to the bloc's executive and thus paving the way for the first new "live" GMO crop for years.

Developed by German chemicals group BASF, the potato yields high amounts of starch. While it would be grown in Europe's fields, it is not intended for direct human consumption and its starch would be used in industries like paper-making.

Since the ministers failed to achieve the required majority under the EU's weighted voting system, the decision now passes to the European Commission, which should now issue a rubberstamp authorization according to EU legal procedures.

"We make 120 percent sure that this product is absolutely safe," Commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich told a daily news briefing earlier on Monday. "It's not a matter of whether it's appropriate for the Commission or not -- it is following rules ... agreed by member states and institutions of the EU."

"If (there is) not a QMV (qualified majority vote), then the Council (of ministers) will send the decision back to the Commission and the Commission and then have to reaffirm the original decision. It will authorize the product," she said.

However, it is unclear exactly how long that might take -- possibly, officials say, due to reluctance inside the Commission's environment department to push the dossier forward.

But when the approval does come, it will be the EU's first approval of a GMO crop for cultivation since its de facto six-year moratorium on new biotech authorizations. That ban ended, again by a default Commission rubberstamp, in 2004.

Even so, no more GMO crops have gained EU approval for cultivation since that time.

VOTING STALEMATE

The European Union has long been split on GMO policy and its 27 member states consistently clash over whether to approve new varieties for import -- but without ever reaching a conclusion.

Even the idea of how biotech crops should be separated from traditional and organic varieties has proved controversial.

Analysis of recent voting patterns indicates that the consistent "blocking minority" of EU governments may be eroding as some smaller countries are opting to abstain than reject an application outright -- so weakening the "anti-GMO" camp.

"There are some member states, regardless of scientific evidence, that don't think any new GMO approval is necessary," one EU diplomat said. It was not immediately clear which way the EU's 27 governments had voted at the farm ministers' meeting.

Some countries, like Britain, Finland and the Netherlands, almost always vote in favor of approving new GMOs. They are offset by a group of GMO-skeptic states like Austria, Greece and Luxembourg, that vote against and force a voting stalemate.

In Europe, consumers are well known for their skepticism, if not hostility, to GMO crops, often dubbed as "Frankenstein foods". But the international biotech industry says its products are perfectly safe and no different to conventional foods.