Here we go again - more European GMO controversy

摘要

At first,it seemed to be "all quiet on the European GMO front" during the summer of 2006 in the sense that there was a welcome absence of the usual hysterical European public press coverage against the perceived iniquities of GMOs.Usually,in the typical "no news" days of a European summer when most people have taken off on their annual holidays,a standard ploy to fill newspaper columns is to fall back on several trusted themes such as a perceived malevolent intent to inflict upon an unwilling European public genetically "contaminated" food.The situation in Europe,in stark contrast to nearly the whole of the rest of the world,is that in the majority of EU countries public opinion is so virulently against GMOs,that despite generally positive outcomes of innumerable objective and scientific studies sponsored by the EU and evaluated by panels of experts in the field,it is very difficult for national politicians to advocate accepting GMOs without risking a severe local loss of political face.The lack of the usual strident headlines against GMOs during this summer thus gave rise to tentative hopes in the pro-GMO lobby that finally cooler heads might be prevailing in the heated emotional,political and non-scientific debate on the merits of GMOs.Maybe the actual scientific,technical and economic benefits of GMOs would begin to be appreciated and that the debate on GMOs could at last become less emotional.The summer had even begun on what seemed to be a really positive note.At the end of May,European agricultural ministers discussed the coexistence of growing biotech,non-biotech and organic crops and had recognised that the very different agro-environmental and growing conditions across the EU require flexibility in technical rules regarding GMO crops and in particular the need to develop "in-depth" technical guidelines that can be adapted by Member states to meet their own individual needs.Such "flexibility" seemed to be the politically acceptable method of somehow squaring the circle of reconciling proven advantages with perceived public antagonism against even the possibility of having some sort of coexistence of GMO and non-GMO crops.(In fact in Europe,coexistence of GMO and non-GMO crops is already a reality and there is ample experience of successful practices in Spain,the EU member state that grows the largest area GM maize).All in all,it seemed that things were slowly advancing on the GMO front.