http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1014-03.htm
Published on Tuesday,
October 14, 2003 by the lndependent/UK
US Firms 'Tried to Lie' Over GM Crops,
Says EU
by Michael McCarthy
CAPTION:
"A farmer destroys his maize crop found to be
contaminated with genetically modified (GMO) seeds.
(AFP-ANSA/File/Francesco Del Bo)
American biotech companies tried to lie to Europe in an attempt
to force genetically modified crops upon them, Margot Wallström,
the European environment commissioner, said yesterday.
Far from developing
GM crops to solve the problem of starvation
in the world, as they claimed, the biotech companies did so to
"solve starvation amongst their shareholders", said
the European
Union's leading green politician.
Speaking to journalists
in London, the 49-year-old Swede followed
her broadside over GM with an attack on the US over the so-called
ghost fleet of rusting and polluted American ships being sent
to
Britain for dismantling, saying they should be kept in America.
She further suggested
that the US government had been putting
pressure on Russia not to ratify the Kyoto protocol.
Mrs Wallström's
unusually outspoken remarks will add to the
ill-feeling between Europe and the US over genetic modification,
which has led to the American government launching a legal action
through the World Trade Organization on the basis that European
nations are dragging their feet over GM crop authorization.
Her comments raise
the political stakes before the publication
on Thursday of Britain's farm-scale trials of GM crops, which
may provide evidence of environmental damage that could lead
to the crops being banned.
At a lunch with journalists,
the commissioner spoke of the
"legitimate concerns of European citizens and farmers and
other groups about the effects of GM crops on human health
and the environment".
Asked if US biotech
companies had chosen the wrong products
to introduce into Europe - meaning crops that were modified
to take more powerful weedkillers, rather than give any other
benefit - she replied: "Of course they have. Absolutely.
They have to face that. They have to realize that they have
chosen the completely wrong approach from the beginning.
"They tried to
lie to people, and they tried to force it
upon people. It's the wrong approach. You cannot force it
upon Europe. So I hope they have learnt a lesson from this,
especially when they now try to argue that this will solve
the problems of starvation in the world and so on.
But come on ... it was to solve starvation amongst
shareholders, not the developing world."
© 2003 Independent
Digital (UK) Ltd
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