Confidential letters between ministers in the British government have been leaked to the press, suggesting that new Brussels rules banning GM-free zones and allowing the "co-existence" of GM with conventional crops.
The EU's self-imposed five-year moratorium on GM crops ends this year and is not being renewed, leaving the way clear for national governments to lift prohibitions. The EU stance has caused problems with the US, which claims the moratorium breached global trade rules.
Prime minister Tony Blair and science minister Lord Sainsbury are widely-recognised as believers in the benefits of GM foods, but the disclosure will fuel the fires of anti-GM campaigners, who claim that the relaxation of controls will open GM floodgates.
A letter from Margaret Beckett, the agriculture minister, to foreign secretary Jack Straw, outlines her support for the EU approach. "I am proposing that we broadly support the Commission's guidelines as providing a reasonable basis to address the issues," The Sunday Times quoted her as writing.
This week the government will announce the results of public consultation on GM technology. It will be interesting to see whether the UK public agrees with previous EU polls, which showed that 70 per cent of Europeans do not want GM foods and 94 per cent would like to choose whether or not they eat it.
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