By Barbara Lewis
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union member states on Wednesday backed a compromise deal likely to make it easier to get approval to grow genetically modified (GM) crops, diplomats said.
Although widely grown in the Americas and Asia, public opposition to GM crops is strong in Europe.
Following years of haggling over the issue, the compromise deal is intended to accommodate both the member states that support GM crops and those who oppose them.
Wednesday's closed-door meeting almost unanimously supported the compromise, diplomats said, with only Belgium abstaining, meaning it will almost certainly get formal approval at a meeting of EU ministers next month in Luxembourg.
After that it would need the backing of the newly elected European Parliament later this year.
Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said the Commission was "cautiously optimistic", adding that a new law could be officially adopted either later this year or early next year.
Under the proposal, member states who disagree with GM cultivation have to ask the Commission to ask companies to exclude them from requests for authorization for new crops, rather than directly approaching the companies. A spokesman for Greece, holder of the rotating EU presidency, which put forward the compromise text, said the requirement that the member state has to make a request via the Commission would ensure maximum legal certainty, while still giving countries the power to refuse GM cultivation. But Friends of the Earth campaign group said it gave too much power to companies.
"Governments must be able to ban unwanted and risky GM crops without needing the permission of the companies who profit from them," Adrian Bebb, food campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe, said.
Representatives of the biotech industry were also unhappy with the compromise, which they said could allow crops to be blocked on "non-scientific grounds".
"EuropaBio's position is that any product that fulfils the EU's science-based risk assessment requirements as set out in EU legislation should be authorized without undue delay," the European industry association said in a statement.
(Additional reporting by Tom Koerkemeier and Francesco Guarasico; editing by Jason Neely and Susan Thomas)
