BioWorld International Correspondent

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Europe's biotech regulatory system was described as "dysfunctional" last week by a leading world scientist. Marc Van Montagu, chairman of the International Plant Biotechnology Organization, also said the EU co-existence rules for GM-crop separation were "disproportionate," and are holding back European farmers.

Montagu, who is also president of the European Federation of Biotechnology, told journalists at a briefing that European farmers are lagging behind the rest of the world in access to agricultural biotechnology. But he claimed that the technology already has demonstrated considerable benefits in Europe, despite systematic attempts to deny European farmers the right to use a technology widely used in the rest of the world.

In Europe, he said, "too often the GMO debate centers on emotional arguments, rather than looking at scientific positives." And he accused anti-biotech activists of shifting their ground.

"They have abandoned allegations about the danger of GMOs, because there is no evidence," he said. "Instead they now oppose GMOs as an attack on the rights of citizens."

He depicted those campaigns as an attempt to replace democracy with a "dictatorship of the majority." Scientific, political and social authorities - even including church leaders and trade unionists - should challenge this trend, he urged. "They should clearly ask, Where is the danger?'" Montagu said.

Gabor Balla, a farmer from Hungary, which has refused to lift its ban on GM maize, told journalists that "as long as Hungarian farmers are denied access to this beneficial and safe technology, they are at a competitive disadvantage versus farmers from France, Czech Republic, Portugal, Germany, Spain and Slovakia, who are already planting biotech crops."

Meanwhile, the European Parliament's agriculture committee adopted a favorable opinion on biotechnology prospects and challenges for agriculture in Europe. The report, which will be debated by the full parliament in March, outlines what it sees as the challenges that need to be tackled to reap the full benefits of the technology. However, the close vote - 22 in favor, 15 against and six abstentions - suggested that the report's expressions of enthusiasm for biotech may be watered down before it is finally and formally adopted, industry analysts said.