With genetically modified products one of the thorniest trade disputes between the United States and Europe, antagonists in Brussels may well have hoped for a boost with EU enlargement in May. However, many of the 10 new member states have not yet committed themselves on GMOs. Several are adopting EU directives and global protocols on GMOs. Yet every country is moving ahead at a different pace, with some considering relevant legislation for the first time. And in those states left out of the first round of expansion, the biotech industry is fighting hard to get a foothold before the second wave of EU enlargement.

After 31 tonnes of genetically modified products were destroyed in a four-month period, officials refused to identify those products that tested positive for GMO content.

Bulgaria is probably stretched hardest in this trans-Atlantic tug-of-war; this spring its parliament is considering draft legislation on the regulation of GMOs and the release of genetically engineered crops into the environment. The biotech industry, meanwhile, is striving to make Bulgaria its strongest outpost in Europe. The United States Department of Agriculture has given funding for the establishment of the Biotech Information Center, closely linked with the Agrobiotech Institute in Sofia. Generally promoting biotechnology, this centre is a unique phenomenon in all of Central and Eastern Europe.

Bulgarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who oppose the spread of genetically engineered crops in their country say it has been difficult to mount a united resistance against biotechnology. Five NGOs formed a consortium called the “Bulgaria – GMO-free Zone.” This consortium called on the country to issue a moratorium on all genetically modified products. Furthermore, it opposes the new draft law regulating GMOs.

Mark des Marets, an American from the NGO NW RAGE, supports the coalition stance, saying that the draft law does not follow EU laws closely enough, and would permit the cultivation of genetically modified crops.

Meanwhile, the NGO Ecosouthwest, which has also campaigned against GMOs, is taking part in the law’s creation by contributing its own recommendations. Ecosouthwest’s Kalin Anastassov says that with no laws in place, genetically engineered foods can be bought freely on the market. He wants the new law to forbid the trading of these products, and believes that Bulgaria’s GMO law could become the most restrictive in Europe. If it does, Amsterdam-based ASEED, which is planning to carry out an initiative later this year in support of organic agriculture, will be pleased. The planned Common Ground campaign will join activists, farmers and other groups across Bulgaria.

In Romania the proliferation of GMOs and the lack of any laws to prevent them presents an alarming situation, says Vera Mora, an authority on the subject from the Hungarian NGO Okotars. Mora estimates that up to 50,000 hectares of genetically modified soybeans are being cultivated in Romania, and that these find their way to the market without any system of labelling or public say in the matter.

	FIRED UP: Workers carry out burned seeds from a Monsanto warehouse in Lodi, Italy. Protesters had set the seeds ablaze under suspicion that they carried genetically modified material. Photo: REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini

Iza Kruszewska, who has dealt extensively with the Romanian situation in her work for the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED) agrees with Mora, saying that if nothing changes, the GMO situation could become an obstacle in Romania’s bid to join the European Union. Unregulated, GMO-ridden agriculture would fly in the face of EU laws and prevent Romanian farmers and food processors from participating on the common European market. GMO content like the antibiotic resistance marker gene, which must be completely phased out of genetically engineered crops by 2008, would also pose a problem, as Romania has no mechanism in place to do this.

In Serbia and Montenegro, where laws on the cultivation of genetically engineered crops do exist, complaints have been raised that soy crops are being smuggled into the country. Bosnia and Herzegovina has refused a donation of StarLink corn from the US, a genetically modified, pest-resistant strain that caused an outcry in the United States when traces of it illegally made their way into human foodstuffs.

Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic all have fairly strong regulations. The new EU member states from CEE need to apply the union legislation, but this is easier said than done, according to Greenpeace’s Bratislava-based campaigner Martin Hojsik. There are still gaps in the implementation of the EU’s GMO directive in Slovakia; Poland has yet to establish a government-accredited lab; and the general implementation capacity in the new member states raises concern, Hojsik said. Slovenia has joined certain regions of Austria and Italy to form the Alpe Adria Bio-region, a self-declared GMO-free zone promoting organic agriculture. While this reflects the will of farms and people, it is not rooted in legislation. Upper Austria, on the other hand, has developed laws that would subject GMO applications to such a cumbersome bureaucratic process that they may as well be banned.

Croatia has adopted EU laws on food and nature protection and in April prepared a governmental decree on monitoring GMOs. Recent testing in the country showed that GMO products have leaked into the market due to custom control’s inability to carefully monitor all imports. The Croatian government is said by some to be in favor of a GMO-free country, yet mixed signals abound: After 31 tonnes of genetically modified products were destroyed in a four-month period, officials refused to identify those products that tested positive for GMO content. Minister of Health Andrija Hebrang gave the matter-of-fact explanation that “publishing their names would seriously imperil the future of the [biotech] business.” Ljiljanka Mitos of the NGO Osijek Greens characterised the situation as “a tragicomic state of affairs.”

Containing crops

Marin Velcev, of Monsanto’s CEE headquarters in Prague, claims that the chemical and biotech multinational always follows local rules and regulations and will even wait for countries like Romania and Bulgaria to establish a registration system and market regulations in harmony with the EU. He claims that Monsanto — the creator of Roundup herbicide and several crops engineered to be cultivated with it — does all that it can to prevent pollen transfer between GMO test sites and conventional fields. He also hinted at new technologies that can limit gene transfer, although these are not commercial yet.

But according to Ricarda Steinbrecher, a biologist and genetic scientist from the UK, no foolproof method exists to prevent cross-pollination or other means by which genetically modified crops can affect the surrounding environment. She cites field tests of genetically modified potatoes in which 35 percent of ordinary potatoes grown 1.1 km away were contaminated with the manipulated gene.

Butterflies, beetles and bumblebees can carry pollen five km or even further. Wind is much harder to contend with: tree pollen has been found on the Shetland Islands, despite the fact that their shores lie 250 km from the nearest tree.

Many scientists agree that the question is no longer whether genes will escape, but what will happen when they do. They fear the spread of engineered traits will slowly but surely enter the gene pool of many other species. Some predict the evolution of superweeds or superbugs: pests that have no enemies, natural or manmade.

EU (in)action

As the European Union’s five-year moratorium on licensing GMOs has run out, a framework of rules and regulations has gradually come into place. A law stipulating labeling requirements and traceability of food products entered into force on April 18. No one knows how this will affect the distribution of genetically engineered foods in the European market, but the law does prescribe a long and difficult process for biotech companies to register their product. Even then European consumers will still have the right to say no, as labeling has been made mandatory.

On April 26, the EU Agricultural Council blocked the approval of Bt-11 maize, a genetically engineered sweet corn. The European Commission’s approval on May 19 greenlighted the first new genetically modified food in Europe since the five-year moritorium began in 1999. Yet Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth trust that this corn will not make it to supermarkets, as labelling regulations are in place and consumer opposition is quite strong.

This step itself has already displeased the United States agricultural sector. The US government has appealed to the World Trade Organisation to force the EU to accept their GMO exports. The outcome is still uncertain, yet it does not appear that the US will achieve its goals in the near future.