Brussels, April 18 - EU biotech experts will discuss three applications this week to approve new genetically modified (GMO) plants but are unlikely to break the bloc's longstanding deadlock on GMO foods, officials said on Wednesday.
The applications, to authorise two modified maize hybrids and one GMO sugar beet, do not relate to cultivation in Europe.
Experts representing the EU's 25 national governments will discuss and possibly vote on the applications. But they were not expected to reach the required consensus under the EU's weighted voting system either to approve or reject them, officials said.
If this happens at Thursday's meeting, the paperwork will be escalated to EU agriculture ministers for debate at a future meeting. Normally, this has to happen within three months.
"At the moment, I can see nothing that would not lead to a non-opinion," one EU official said.
If the ministers cannot agree, again a likely scenario, then the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, usually issues its own authorisation under a legal default process.
Since the EU's six-year unofficial moratorium on approving new GMO products was lifted in 2004, the Commission has authorised a string of GMOs in this way, outraging green groups.
For many years, EU countries have not been able to secure the majority needed to vote through a new GMO approval. They last agreed to authorise a new GMO product in 1998.
European consumers are well known for their wariness towards GMO foods but the biotech industry insists its products are safe and no different from conventional foods.
MODIFIED MAIZE, BEET
The first maize hybrid, submitted for EU approval by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto, is known as MON810/NK603 and designed to resist certain insects and also glyphosate -- the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.
Monsanto's application relates to food and animal feed produced from the modified plants or containing ingredients derived from those plants.
The second GMO maize, a hybrid known as 1507/NK603, has been developed to resist certain field pests like the European corn borer, and also the herbicides glufosinate and glyphosate.
The maize is jointly made by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of DuPont Co., and Dow AgroSciences unit Mycogen Seeds. Their application is for import and processing, for all food and feed uses, and all food, feed and processed products derived from the GMO maize plants.
The GMO sugar beet, called H7-1, was developed jointly by Monsanto and German plantbreeding company KWS SAAT AG to resist glyphosate-containing herbicides. The application relates to food and animal feed produced from the beet, for example sugar, syrup, dried pulp and molasses.