Applications to sell genetically modified food in the European Union are beginning to find solid footing after years of being bogged down in a regulatory quagmire.
Requests are slowly winding their way through the system, including one for GM canola, said Eric Hayes, the EU’s ambassador to Canada, who was in Saskatchewan last week for a diplomatic conference.
Exporters of GM products are reaping the benefits of a more efficient approval process adopted by the EU in 2001, which has just recently started showing results.
Under the previous set of rules, a qualified majority of member states had to be in favour of the application, which seldom happened.
Read Also
Research looks to control flea beetles with RNAi
A Vancouver agri-tech company wants to give canola growers another weapon in the never-ending battle against flea beetles.
“We had a process where decisions tended to peter out,” said Hayes, during a meeting at the Western Producer.
The new system gives the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, the power to approve or reject applications when member states can’t reach agreement on their own.
“In other words the system is now moving,” said Hayes.
The commission has already approved two GM corn applications under the new regulatory regime, one submitted by Monsanto, the other by Syngenta.
Twenty-one other submissions are in the pipeline including Monsanto’s GT73, a line of GM canola tolerant to Roundup herbicide.
Hayes anticipates the member states will be unable to reach a consensus on the canola application.
“At some stage in the autumn the ball will come back to the commission on that one.”
Hayes wouldn’t predict whether Monsanto’s GM canola line would get the nod from the commission, but he pointed out that gaining regulatory approval doesn’t necessarily clear the way for commercial success.
Some GM products approved under the old regulatory system were cast aside by wary European consumers and reluctant retailers.
“Supermarkets think they can gain a competitive advantage by saying loud and clear, ‘Everything on our shelves is GM-free,’ ” said the ambassador.
Hayes said the commission has to “re-establish consumer confidence” in the regulatory process before there will be broad acceptance of GM food in Europe.
There is also an onus on biotech companies to revisit the priorities of their breeding programs because the current range of GM products do not offer tangible benefits to consumers, said Hayes.
“Does it taste better? Is it more nutritious? Is it cheaper? And so on.”
If they had taken that tack in the first place the anti-GM sentiment may not have escalated to the extent it has in Europe and biotech firms would be facing a less restrictive application process, he said.
“I think part of the problem, going back to the start of the process, was that Monsanto focused all their market research on farms and they didn’t look to the final stage of the food process.”
