Political will to lift the moratorium is emerging in Denmark, Italy, and France, which have appointed new governments since 1999. Although it has just three votes, Denmark could play a decisive role as it holds the EU presidency from July 1 to December 31. Erling Jelsøe from the Department of Environment, Technology and Social Studies of Roskilde University, says Denmark's position is “not crystal clear” as its priorities will include both the approval of the new rules on traceability and labeling and also the lifting of the moratorium “without any indication of how they should be linked to each other.” In March, the environment minister Hans Christian Schmidt said that the regulation on labeling and traceablity must be in place before Denmark lifts the moratorium. Most of the parliamentary committee that dealt with the bill to implement 2001/18 added that Denmark should not restart GM approvals without the consent of the other countries behind the moratorium. However, according to Helga Moos, parliamentarian from the Liberal Party and spokesperson for GM issues at the Danish Environmental Committee, the government is bent on unblocking the situation: “We still support the moratorium as we feel it is necessary to have the whole regulatory framework in place for the public to accept GMOs, but we are going to work hard to have the regulation on labeling and traceability formally approved as soon as possible,” says Moos. “If any of the other European countries refuses to restart the authorization process for GM products even at this point, I think Denmark should follow its own path. We don't see it as a 'one for all and all for one' situation. Both parties of the Government—Liberals and Conservatives—are positive about GMOs.”
Denmark could find an ally in Italy, whose center-right government has seen an unexpected twist this spring. The agriculture minister Gianni Alemanno, in the same anti-GMO vein as his predecessor Alfonso Pecorraro Scanio (Nat. Biotechnol. 18, 919, 2000), has been pushing Italian agriculture to reject GMOs since his appointment in June 2001. However, during the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) World Food Summit held in Rome in June 2002, a surprising sequence of statements in support of GMOs highlighted Alemanno's political isolation: defense minister Antonio Martino said that “[agricultural] biotechnology seems to be a formidable growth factor and a production improvement”. The following day, the industry minister Antonio Marzano said “I think we should be open to GMOs.” Twenty-four hours later, the Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi came out with: “We need to be cautious, but we cannot ignore the miracles achieved by means of genetically modified seeds, which increase yields and need no chemical protection. People must be free to choose not to buy GM food, but I think the same freedom of choice cannot be denied to those who trust these products.”
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