Brussels, Dec 4 - EU environment experts failed to agree on Monday on whether to authorise growing of a genetically modified (GMO) potato, their first foray into the sensitive area of "live" biotech crops in eight years, an EU official said.
"It was a non-opinion and now goes to council (of EU ministers)," the official told Reuters, adding that this would most likely happen at a meeting in the first quarter of 2007.
The potato, engineered by German chemicals group BASF to yield high amounts of starch, is used only for industrial processing to make items such as paper. It is not designed to be consumed by humans or animals.
Under the EU's complex weighted voting system, the experts' failure to reach a consensus either to approve or reject the application means the matter will be passed to EU ministers.
If the ministers also fail to agree, after three months, the European Commission gains the legal power to issue an approval -- a method used in the EU several times since May 2004 to approve new GMO products for import.
That would make the potato, known as Amylogene, the first "live" GMO product to gain EU approval since 1998.
Shortly afterwards, the bloc started its de facto moratorium on new biotech authorisations that ended in 2004.
BASF has filed a separate application for EU approval of its GMO potato -- no date is yet set for discussions -- whereby the waste from processing would be used to make animal feed.
Just last week, Britain gave the go-ahead to research trials for another GMO potato -- also made by BASF, but for resisting potato blight. It will not be used for food or feed.
The EU has different rules to regulate GMO field trials, while BASF's Amylogene application is for commercial growing.
Europe has long been split on genetically modified policy, and the EU's 25 countries consistently clash over whether to approve new varieties for import. The Commission usually ends up issuing a rubberstamp approval.
Green groups were outraged by the idea of the EU authorising the cultivation of more GMO crops. At present, only a handful may be grown, with approvals dating to 1998 and earlier.
"Allowing genetically modified potatoes to be grown in Europe would be a disaster," Helen Holder at Friends of the Earth Europe said in a statement.
"These potatoes are not intended for human consumption, but the biotech industry itself admits that they would end up in the food chain. The public would end up eating them if they liked it or not," she said.