German drugs and chemicals group Bayer should win EU approval next week to import genetically modified (GMO) rapeseed types into EU markets under a 10-year authorisation, officials said on Thursday. The decision will be a rubberstamp procedure applied by the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, and permitted under a legal-default process that kicks in when ministers cannot agree among themselves after three months.

This was the case last September, when ministers failed to reach a consensus agreement under the weighted EU voting system. "We've had the green light for the (written) procedure to be launched. So if there's no problem, it (approval) should happen later next week," one Commission official said.

In Commission jargon, a "written procedure" refers to a proposed decision that usually passes without problem through the executive's various departments and then enters into force. But this is not always the case, since any department -- headed by each of the Commission's 27 commissioners -- has the right to block the decision. After launching the procedure, if there is no objection, a decision takes 5-7 days to be taken.

Bayer's application relates to industrial processing, which includes use in animal feed, for rapeseed types Ms8, Rf3 and hybrids of these two. All are designed to resist the glufosinate-ammonium herbicide. It does not involve cultivation. Part of the reason for the Commission's delay in approving the rapeseed types was that extra monitoring guidelines had to be included in the EU authorisation, another official said.

This also happened in 2005 when the Commission issued a similar approval for a Monsanto rapeseed and tightened wording over liability for inadvertent seed spills during transportation, storage, general handling and processing. Since the EU's six-year unofficial moratorium on approving new GMO products was lifted in 2004, the Commission has authorised a string of GMOs in this way, outraging green groups. But EU governments consistently clash over biotech policy and have not agreed by themselves on a GMO approval since 1998.

Biotech flowers, potatoes
The Commission also is due to issue another rubberstamp GMO approval in the next few weeks or months, for imports of a biotech carnation called Florigene Moonlite and engineered by Australian company Florigene. No date had been set but there was no problem with issuing a default authorisation, officials said. The flowers are modified to produce blue pigment and also carry a herbicide-resistant gene. Florigene's application relates to general distribution and sale, not for growing.

But little should happen for the time being with another GMO application, to allow a biotech potato to be grown: the EU's first attempt in eight years to approve a "live" GMO crop. In December, EU environment experts clashed on whether to permit cultivation of the Amylogene potato, engineered by German chemicals group BASF to yield high amounts of starch.

BASF's application relates only to industrial processing for making items such as paper. The potato is not designed to be consumed by humans or used in animal feed. After national EU experts fail to agree, the matter usually passes to EU ministers for a decision. But the BASF application failed to appear on the agenda of their last meeting, in March.

Commission experts have requested additional scientific data and opinions on the dossier, effectively "stopping the clock" on the usual EU timeframe for BASF's application to be processed. When that information had been provided, the timetable would resume and ministers would then be asked to approve the potato for growing at a later meeting, officials said.
(Por Jeremy Smith, Planet Ark, 09/03/2007)