Ministers from 12 EU states have written to European Health Commissioner Tonio borg, urging him not to grant a license for a controversial variety of genetically modified maize.

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After voting in the European Council on Tuesday ended in deadlock, responsibility for granting approval of the maize – TC1507, developed by DuPoint Pioneer and Dow AgroScience – passed to the Commission. Speaking ahead of the vote, Commissioner Borg had said he would be obliged to approve the GM maize for cultivation in the Bloc if there was no legal majority in the Council vote (in voting, 19 states opposed approval of the maize, five voted for and four abstained.) 

However, Environmentalists have claimed that, despite having been green-lighted several times by health watchdog EFSA, concerns over the maize persist. There are fears that the crop's Bt toxin could harm non-target insects and Greenpeace asserts that key safety data on the maize is missing. Last month, the European Parliament passed a resolution urging the Commission to reject the application if the Council vote failed to produce a conclusive result.

Greenpeace has also suggested that a ruling by the General Court – the same body that revived TC1507's stalled approval process in September – could hamper the pending approval of the controversial maize variety. Greenpeace said that the court's decision in December to annul the approval of BASF's Amflora potato, which was licensed in 2010, but withdrawn from sale in 2012, could have implications for the maize's licensing bid.

Greenpeace spokesperson Marco Contiero claimed that the general Court's Ruling "demonstrates that the Commission committed the same legal errors in pushing both authorisations" of Amflora and TC1507.

Ministers urge Commissioner not to approve Maize 1507

On Wednesday, ministers writing to the Commissioner warned that the level of opposition to GM crops in Europe means approving a new GM variety would be made difficult under most democratic procedures. They suggested that an approval would not play out well in EU Parliament elections in May. Eight of the 28 member states have banned GM crops from their territories, though the legality of these bans has been challenged.

Ministers from Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland and Slovenia signed the letter.

Speaking to German broadcaster Deutsche Well, Belgian MEP Bart Staes elaborated on the unusual circumstances surrounding the licensing procedure for TC1507. He said the Commission would be sending "a very strange message to the general public to now authorize GMO maize which is clearly not wanted by a majority of member states."

Staes added, "The strange thing about it is that the Pioneer request dates to before the Lisbon treaty [it was first filed in 2001], so it's according to the old rules, the rules of decision-making before the Lisbon treaty of 2009… According to the new procedures under the Lisbon treaty, then with the 19 member states we would have had enough votes in the council to block this authorisation."

Worldwide, the vast majority of GM crops are grown in four countries in North and South America. Although proponents of the technology claim European agriculture risks becoming a "museum" unless it embraces GM crops, sceptics argue that the controversial crops have been touted as a 'magic bullet', whereas for the most part they remain a "band-aid" on a flawed agricultural paradigm.

In what is suspected to be a conciliatory gesture, Commissioner Borg has announced his intention to revive talks on introducing rules which would allow individual member states to decide whether or not to plant GM crops on their territories. These measures were debated under the Danish presidency of the EU last year, but abandoned after a second reading ended in deadlock. Both pro- and anti-GM member states were involved in blocking the compromise measures.   

The measures are set to be debated at the next Council meeting in March.