At its plenary session on Thursday (16th January), Members of the European Parliament called for action to prevent a controversial variety of genetically modified maize from being placed on the market.  

MEPs warned that GM maize TC1507 should not be licensed for sale because its insect-resistant pollen might harm non-target butterflies and moths. If approved, the GM maize variety, produced by DOW Pioneer, would be only the second commercially available GM crop in the EU. BASF's Amflora potato, which was approved in 2010, was withdrawn from sale in January 2012 and the approval was subsequently annulled by the EU's General Court.

Debate over TC1507 was rekindled in September last year, when the General Court ruled that the EU Commission had delayed the approval process after the maize's manufacturers lodged a complaint. On Thursday, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the Council of Ministers to reject its proposed authorisation of the maize, and urged the European Commission not to propose or renew authorisations of any GMO variety until risk assessment methods have been improved.

The only GM crop currently authorised for production in the EU is Monsanto's Yieldgard maize, though the crop's authorisation has expired and the renewal process has been pending for several years.

Although EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg said he was "duty bound" to comply with the will of the court in November, farmer and spokesperson for the European green party José Bové said, "The Commission should be heeding the concerns of EU consumers, farmers and civil society instead of aggressively pushing the agenda of biotech corporations to foist GMOs onto the EU market and into our fields."

Around the world, the vast majority of GM crops are grown in large arable producing countries of North and South America (over 80 percent of the world's GM crops come from just four nations). In Europe, farmers and consumers have traditionally been hostile to the crops, which are banned in eight of the 28 member states.

MEPs opposing the approval noted that the Commission proposal fails to specify any "conditions for protection of particular ecosystems/environments and/or geographical areas", as required by EU legislation. In its February 2012 opinion, health watchdog the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) disagreed with DOW Pioneer's conclusions that the maize poses negligible risk to non-target insect species, pointing out that exposure to pollen may put some species at risk.

Reacting to the Commission's proposals in November, Helena Paul, acting chair of GM Freeze in the UK, said, "Serious doubts remain about the safety of the Bt protein present in this GM maize and there is a lack of independent evidence about its impact on target species, as well as non-target species that are exposed to it in the environment. [Crops] such as this are proving increasingly ineffective in the US as insects develop resistance to the GM toxin and farmers have to use more insecticides. It is not sustainable in any sense of the word and member states should reject it."

Commenting on the vote on Thursday, Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, a German Socialist and Democrat MEP, said, "We are clearly lacking evidence on the safety of this new GMO strain." Ms Roth-Behrendt added that Pioneer had refused to supply EFSA with additional documents on the risk to non-target species last year.  

Elaborating on the regulatory process in Europe, which has been criticised by both industry and GM-sceptics, she said, "It is true that the regulatory environment is made difficult due to the fact that several member states are not in favour of new authorisation for cultivation. It must also been said that the lack of evidence provided by the industry on the safety of new GM crops does not help to dispel EU citizens' recurring doubts on GMOs. This is why [EU citizens] consider GMOs as not offering benefits, as unsafe, as inequitable and as worrying."