EU to propose more flexible GMO food material imports

Tag : Food Material
Her proposal comes as one of the results of a tortuous debate heldlast month at the highest levels of the European Commission - theEU executive - on how to move forward on GMO policy and end yearsof deadlock between EU countries.

That may change later this year, as EU Health CommissionerAndroulla Vassiliou prepares a legal proposal that, provided EUfarm ministers agree, would set a ceiling for the amount ofunauthorised GM material which could be tolerated in imports.

"The problem is zero tolerance," Vassiliou told Reuters in aninterview. "We are not talking about big numbers, we are talkingabout very limited (amounts) which are already difficult to detectbecause they are so limited."

That ceiling would certainly be less than 1.0 percent, she said,adding that the proposal should be issued by early August.

At present, EU law sets a tolerance threshold of 0.9 percent for GMmaterial in food and feed, above which a cargo must be labelled asbeing biotech.