EU withdraws approval for five "old" GMO crops

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU biotech experts have withdrawn approval for five genetically modified (GMO) products no longer in commercial use, including the first GMO crop grown in Europe, the EU's executive Commission said on Tuesday.

Three of the products were cited in a dispute filed against the European Union by major biotech growers Argentina, Canada and the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Commission, which negotiates trade policy on behalf of the EU, has said it will not appeal against the 2006 ruling, where the WTO found that the EU had operated a de facto moratorium on GMO products, breaking global trade rules.

No applications to renew EU licenses for the five GMOs were expected from their manufacturing companies before the products' authorization expired on April 18, the Commission said.

"If the companies responsible for these GMOs wanted to continue marketing them in the EU after that date, they had to submit an application to the Commission," it said.

"For the 5 GMOs affected ... no applications for renewal are expected. This is due to the fact that they are no longer being used and the companies no longer have any commercial interest in them," the Commission said in a statement.

The five GMOs are Bt-176 maize, the first biotech crop grown in Europe and engineered by Swiss agrochemicals company Syngenta, a maize hybrid known as GA21/MON810 made by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto and three GMO rapeseed types marketed by German drugs and chemicals group Bayer -- Ms1Rf1, Ms1Rf2 and Topas 19/2.

Although all stocks of food and feed derived from these GMOs had been used up, the possibility remained that some food and feed products within EU markets might still contain trace amounts of the GMOs, the Commission said.

Each company would therefore be required to identify and withdraw seeds of any of these GMOs from the market, it said.

Since this could not be achieved overnight, a 0.9 percent threshold for the accidental presence of the five GMOs would be allowed in food and feed products for the next five years.

"It is an absolute disgrace that European taxpayers' money was spent defending a trade dispute about products that biotech companies were about to withdraw," said Helen Holder, GMO campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe in a statement.

"The biotech industry should be forced to pay the EU compensation for the time and money they have wasted," she said.

While European consumers are known for their wariness toward GMO foods, the biotech industry insists that its products are perfectly safe and no different to conventional foods. Europe's hostility to GMO foods is unfounded, it says.