US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said he wants 'science' to dictate whether or not GM crops and hormone treated beef are accepted into Europe (but not labelled), ahead of agriculture trade talks.

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The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, is set to be the largest free trade agreement in the world, and could be completed by the end of the year. The talks have been roundly criticised, however, for lacking in transparency.

Critics have also suggested that a major outcome of the agreement could be a consolidation of corporate power, and a weakening of governments' regulatory position, meaning in many cases they will be unable to intervene in issues on behalf of the public.

Although in the run-up to TTIP, the EU's chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero told German broadcaster ARD, "What is non-negotiable are food safety standards. Hormones are prohibited, there is a strict regime of genetically modified organisms and this is not going to go away", Vilsack  took aim at the EU approval process for GM crops on Tuesday.

The talks turn to agriculture this week. Food and farming have proven thorny issues with negotiators; issues including protected food names have caused contention and US industry lobbyists have their sights set on lifting EU bans in areas including meat from animals treated with hormones, chicken washed in chlorine and genetically modified foods – all of which EU negotiators have said are non-negotiable 'red lines'.

Although numerous varieties of controversial GM crops have been cleared for import into Europe and feed much of the bloc's livestock, only a tiny amount of GM material goes into foods directly sold to consumers, due to widespread public resistance. Vilsack appealed to "science" as a common language in a press conference on Tuesday and claimed that "non-scientific barriers" should be eliminated in the talks, to open markets between the EU and United States.  

He was critical of the EU's approval process for licensing new GM crops and the legal requirement to label foods containing GM ingredients. The USDA secretary said this might give consumers the impression that there is a safety issue with GM foods.

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However, Vilsack's appeals to "sound science" are not as straightforward as they appear; EU regulations do not merely rely on the whims of its citizens, but are in fact rooted in the 'precautionary principle', which places the burden of proof on those who are trying claim that a contested action or object is not harmful. The principle is a feature of a number of UN protocols and is enshrined in some areas of EU law.

Reacting to Vilsack's comments on Friday, Nina Holland from transparency and lobbying watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory said, "Vilsack's appeal to the use of 'sound science' is a frequently employed tactic by industry to discredit legitimate concerns about the safety of GMOs or chemicals such as endocrine disruptors. What they are saying is that unless there is irrefutable proof that a product poses a danger, it should be allowed to stay on the market.

"What we are saying is that current risk assessment procedures even in the EU are not good enough: long term studies are not done, studies are only done by industry and their data are often not published, the so-called 'cocktail effect' is not dealt with, etc. People calling for 'sound science' should be calling for solutions to precisely these problems, instead of pretending that these products are proven to be safe."

Last month, transparency organisation Earth Open Source released a detailed report authored by medical genetic engineers which questioned certain widely accepted narratives on GM food. The report warned that, contrary to the claims of its supporters, there is no scientific consensus on the safety of GM food crops, let alone the part the technology has to play in efforts to achieve global food security. Research from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, released last year, also showed that the EU's package of mostly GM-free agriculture had succeeded in reducing chemical inputs and growing yields for a range of staple crops, and compared favourably to the United State's agriculture, which is heavily reliant on the crops and associated chemicals.  

Although such labelling is not yet a legal requirement, a study conducted by the UK Food Standards Agency in 2012 found that a majority of consumers support labelling meat and dairy products from animals fed on a diet containing GM organisms and there have been repeated attempts from public interest groups in the United States to introduce mandatory labelling laws, which have forced industry to spend big to thwart growing public concern.

Implications of 'compromise' GM measures agreed by EU Council

Moves within the EU towards a renationalised licensing system for genetically modified crops could be affected if GMOs are brought into TTIP talks, particularly given the concerns that the trade agreement may increase the power of large corporations. Responding to voting in the European Council last week, which saw environment ministers back measures that would theoretically allow member states to accept or ban GM crops on an individual basis, green groups warned that ministers had accepted "a poisoned chalice."

Friends of the Earth claimed on Thursday that the 'compromise proposals' would in reality grant GM seed companies an unprecedented say in whether their crops were accepted at member state level. Last week's vote was on an internal EU package unrelated to the TTIP talks but designed to end deadlocks in the current EU regulatory system. Similar measures were proposed under the Danish presidency of the EU, but were rejected by both pro- and anti-GM states, before being accepted this year under the outgoing Greek presidency.

"They [compromise measures] would be given the legal right to decide whether a national ban should be allowed", Friends of the Earth warned. "If companies oppose bans, national governments would be forced to fall back on non-scientific legal grounds, opening the door to legal challenges."

Food Campaigner Mute Schimpf commented, "It is unacceptable that companies like Monsanto will be given the first say in any decision to ban their products. Governments must be able to ban unwanted and risky GM crops without needing the permission of the companies who profit from them. This proposal is a poisoned chalice that fails to give member states solid legal grounds to ban genetically modified crops. If this law is passed more GM crops could be allowed in Europe, increasing dramatically increasing the risk of contamination of our food and farming."