A cargo of GM potatoes Amflora (Credit: AP)

He had promised after the end of the moratorium on new crops GM crops in Europe. Once authorized in March, the production of transgenic potato hotly contested Amflora , the multinational BASF, the European Commissioner for Health John Dalli warned that this was only the beginning: "before the summer will be ready to leave the European Commission's proposal to States choosing to grow GM crops or not. "

It performs Tuesday, July 13 the decisive step towards the deregulation desired by Commission President Barroso . Dalli will be unveiled by the Commission, the governing body of the European Union, the proposal for the liberalization of GMOs. If passed, the governments of the Member States will be free to choose whether or not to grow GM crops on their territory currently authorized.

A decision on this issue is the Commission that in over ten years of heated debate, the Council of the Union has never managed to assemble a secure majority, either in favor or against, on the authorization of GM production. The proposed Dalli is still destined to make a new order total to matter. In addition to allowing States to decide whether or not to grow GM crops, potentially contain new rules to facilitate the coexistence of conventional production, organic and GM, which would become the responsibility of the Agriculture Commissioner of Health to that, that is the same Dalli.

The European debate promises to be challenging. Paris made no secret of his opposition to the approach chosen by Brussels, demanding more stringent permit conditions. The Minister for Agriculture Giancarlo Galan, has not yet decided but, in general, with regard to GMOs has pointed out in recent days: "I will encourage research and experimentation in this field. I will not let you find that Italy pay gap difficult to recover in a medium such as strategic knowledge. " A much more open position than his predecessor, Luca Zaia, who on the case of potato Amflora few months ago were fighting resolutely against the Commission's decision to admit the production.

The case of Amflora had raised a firestorm of controversy and aroused the fears of environmentalists and others. Despite the potato was cultivated for industrial use only (because of its higher content of starch), the presence of a marker gene which confers resistance to antibiotics it made ​​the production of fact incompatible with that provided by Directive 2001/18/EC , which puts the right to ban GM crops resistant to antibiotics.

GM crops currently licensed in Europe are 33 and it is of various types of cotton, corn, soybeans, in addition to the potato from BASF. Among the outstanding producers the multinational Monsanto , which owns the majority of products in the European Register, followed by Bayer and Syngenta.