BioWorld International Correspondent

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European biotech industry executives greeted with dismay a European Parliament resolution approved May 22, which aims at imposing a new - and much tighter - threshold for the adventitious presence of genetically modified organisms.

The parliament approved a text that is in open conflict with established EU rules that 0.9 percent is an acceptable level of adventitious presence of GMOs. At the end of a debate on rules for organic foods, the parliament concluded: "The presence of GMOs in organic products should be confined exclusively to adventitious and technically unavoidable quantities not exceeding 0.1 percent."

According to the parliament, member states should create legislative frameworks, based on the precautionary principle, and the polluter pays principle, to prevent any risk of the contamination of organic products with GMOs. "Operators should take all necessary precautionary measures to prevent adventitious or technically unavoidable contamination with GMOs," it said.

As EuropaBio commented, "This is in stark contradiction with the current rules that define a 0.9 percent threshold for labeling whether the GM ingredient is present in conventional food or organic food."

A final decision will now be made by EU agriculture ministers, who meet to discuss the issue on June 11-12.

The most recent version of the text that ministers are working on - dating back to March - still contains the 0.9 percent threshold, and EU officials also are strongly defending that level.

But as EuropaBio said, "The anti-lobby is active on this point, and decisions at ministerial level can sometimes be extremely political in nature and distant from the written agreement."

Meanwhile, however, the EU's highest court, the European Court of Justice, appears likely to condemn a blanket ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops that one of the regions of Austria has been attempting to impose.

A just-published preliminary opinion from the court finds that the ban adopted by the regional government of Upper Austria is insufficiently justified.

The judge - whose opinion now needs to be confirmed by the court as a whole in the coming weeks - said there was no new evidence of a problem, which could support the ban. At the same time, he admitted - in acknowledgement of the political sensitivity of the subject in Europe - "I am well aware that the conclusion which I reach - or perhaps rather its implications - will disappoint not only the appellants but also many individuals and organizations deeply and genuinely concerned about the as yet not wholly determined risks involved in the propagation of GMOs."

But the judge insisted that "the concerns in question are policy concerns, which must be dealt with in political fora," and that regional governments in the EU may not adopt legislation imposing a blanket ban on GMOs within their territory, unless they can provide full supporting evidence.