The European Union revealed its deep divisions over biotech policy on Wednesday as environment experts representing the bloc's 15 governments failed to agree on allowing imports of a genetically modified (GM) maize.
This was their second attempt in 10 weeks to lift a five-year unofficial ban on authorising new GM products: a policy that has angered the EU's major trade partners and sparked a suit against the bloc at the World Trade Organisation.
The decision on approving the sale of NK603 maize, made by US biotech giant Monsanto, means the matter will now pass to ministers.
They will have three months to debate the proposal, which was put forward by the European Commission.
If ministers cannot agree by this time, the Commission has the legal right to rubberstamp its own proposal, which relates to import and industrial processing.
"If authorised, the maize, which has been modified for increased tolerance to the herbicide glyphosate, would be clearly labelled as containing GM maize," the Commission said.
But no imports would be allowed until after new rules on GM organisms (GMOs), which regulate GMO trace-ability and labelling, enter into force in mid-April, and also after another committee approved food uses of the maize, it said in a statement.
This committee may not meet before June, officials say.
The EU went through a very similar process in December for authorising imports of another GM product - Bt-11 sweetcorn, whose seeds are marketed by Swiss agrochemicals firm Syngenta.
That debate ended in deadlock and the vote was split roughly 50-50 under the EU's complex weighted voting rules.
MORE APPETITE FOR APPROVAL? With Wednesday's vote, the EU's opposition against lifting its longstanding refusal to endorse new GM products appeared to be easing as three more countries voted in favour of approving a new application than in December.
In many hours of behind-scenes negotiation, five countries voted against the Commission's proposal to authorise NK603 maize - Denmark, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and Austria. Germany abstained, and the nine remaining member states voted in favour.
Neither the Bt-11 nor NK603 requests for approval relate to growing in Europe's fields. This will be the acid test for determining whether the EU has really lifted its biotech ban.
Green groups welcomed the result of the vote but criticised the increasing number of EU countries that backed an approval.
Europe's consumers are overwhelmingly opposed to GM foods, and this antipathy has so far deterred supermarkets from increasing their small ranges of biotech produce.
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