The European Union is likely to take a small but crucial step towards authorising a new genetically modified (GMO) food next week, diplomats have indicated. But member states remain as divided as ever on the thorny issue of biotechnology.
EU farm ministers are due to meet on Monday to debate authorising NK603 maize, altered to resist the herbicide glyphosate, thereby allowing farmers to manage weeds more effectively.
If approved, the maize would not be used in Europe but would be imported in bulk for making products such as starch, oil, maize gluten feed and maize meal, and for use in animal feed.
If the council of ministers fail to agree after three months, the European Commission is empowered to authorise the change.
One EU diplomat today predicted such a scenario was likely to play out and that the Commission would use its powers to authorise the change in October.
"Most of the new member states will abstain [but] regardless of what happens on Monday, the three-month deadline brings us to the middle of October. Then the Commission can act," he said.
In mid-May, the EU effectively restarted authorisations on new GMOs when the Commission cleared the sale of a tinned biotech sweet maize known Bt-11, made by Swiss firm Syngenta, using its own powers to permit imports of a new biotech product.