Reuters | October 27, 1999 | Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON - European and U.S. officials were cited as agreeing on Wednesday to set up a committee with farmers, scientists and possibly even religious leaders to offer worried consumers advice about genetically modified foods.
The new working group, announced after European Commission President Romano Prodi met with President Bill Clinton, will deal with some people's safety and environmental fears about foods made with bioengineered soybeans, corn, potatoes and other crops.
The advisory panel will, the story adds, exist until the EU can set up an independent food regulatory agency like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
EU trade official Matthew Baldwin was quoted as saying that members could include top world scientists as well as representatives of consumer, farm and possibly religious groups to "fill the gap" until an independent food agency is established.
The advisory group's main aim would be to "address the fears and concerns on both sides of the Atlantic" about genetically modified foods, he said. "We just agreed it's important to step that up."
The proposal has been warmly received in the United States because of the view that EU decisions on genetically modified crops and other biotechnology trade issues have been guided more by politics than science.
While relatively few Americans have expressed concern about the potential long-term effects of biotech foods, Europeans, who went through crises caused by mad cow disease and animal feed tainted with dioxin, have been much more vocal critics.
Sen. Richard Lugar, the Indiana Republican who heads the Senate Agriculture panel, had wanted a pledge that the EU would reinstate regulatory approval for bioengineered crops in 2000. Prodi did not offer such a promise, Lugar said.
Under pressure from consumer and green groups worried about safety, the 15-member EU last summer essentially halted its approval process for imports of genetically modified crops until a revamped procedure was up and running. Some experts have said that might take until 2002.
U.S. farm groups blame EU slowness in approving biotech crops for costing American growers $200 million in lost corn sales to Spain and Portugal in each of the past two years.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, expressed frustration over EU resistance to phasing out agricultural subsidies, another key item for U.S. trade negotiators.
