The European Commission held an internal debate on 28 January to review the situation as regards genetically modified organisms (GMO). The assessment four years after the previous one summed up the progress made in the sector since then. It emerged from the meeting that the Union has been able to equip itself with an efficient system of authorization and control, moreover one that it recognized and respected all over the world, both by the producer and exporter countries of GMOs, and by special-interest associations (of producers, farmers, traders and consumers). European legislation guarantees that GMOs authorized by the Union are “compatible with healthy human nutrition and may safely be disseminated in the environment”. With the exception of two varieties of sweet corn, the Commission has not in fact granted any authorization since October 1998 in spite of the exponential growth of GMOs themselves. This is a kind of ‘soft protectionism’ that has cost the EU one case of litigation within the World Trade Organization, at the request of the USA, Canada and Argentina.
