EU

The president of the European Commission Barroso came up with a new idea to solve the problem that so far there has never been a qualified majority to approve of a GM crop: he simply wants to get Member States to agree on GMOs behind closed doors.
If there is no qualified majority either in favour or against an application, that is a given number of votes that is higher then just a simple majority, then it is up to the Commission to take a decision. That the EU Commission is described as undemocratic is nothing new - but does the Barroso have to make it so blatantly obvious? And is he really hoping that those countries that abstain from the vote, or even vote against the approval of a GMO can be pressured into conforming to his wishes once the public can't see what's happening?

Thanks to a lot of hard work of NGOs and civil society organisations, the EU Envrionmental Committee decided to drop its agrofuel targets from 10 to 4%. Together with a decision in the UK this shows that the uncritical hype to replace fossil fuels by crops without changing much about fuel and energy use ist over, and that there are serious doubts whether the production of agrofuels can be sustainable and fair.

On 6 March, BASF announced that there would be no commercial cultivation of the GM potatoe Amflora - while a few weeks ago the company with acting as if getting the required aproval for planting was immanent.

On 20 February 2007, the EU Environmental Ministers are supposed to decide on an application by BASF for the cultivation of a genetically modified potato. BASF seems to be optimistic that this application will be approved: the company already registered in January more then 150 hectares in the German states Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for commercial cultivation. But somehow nobody seems to raise this issue, nobody seems to oppose it. Five good reasons to act against the approval of BASF's GM potato Amflora.

BASF applied for approval for the cultivation of the GM starch potato Amflora, as well as for its use as food and feed. Even though the application does not include any sufficient information to evaluate its environmental and food/feed safety, the EFSA gave a positive opinion.