DAVID ROSS
CAMPAIGNERS claimed last night that new information had come to light revealing that, almost 10 months ago, the government had cleared the way in Europe for the United Kingdom to turn down GM crop trials.

It had justified the Welsh Assembly's decision to forbid such trials and thereby opened up a legal escape route for Ross Finnie, the environmental and rural development minister, to stop the controversial GM trial at Munlochy on the Black Isle, the campaigners added.

A letter sent by Bill Stow, the UK's permanent representative to the EU, to Jim Currie, EU director general of environment, last July argued, apparently successfully, that under EU law, UK administrations could invoke Article 16, and stop the growing of any GM crop.

Article 16 allows EU countries, where there is a risk to human health or the environment, to "provisionally restrict or prohibit the use" of GM crops, even where the crop has already been approved for release within the EU.

Unlike Mr Finnie, the UK government argues the case for a "broad reading" of the GM law - that GM crop trials are incompatible with organic food production, and that allowing GM plantings would be illegal as it would breach the EU law on the purity of organic food.

Westminster uses Article 16 to allow the Welsh Assembly, which believes there is a risk to the environment, to ban GM trials in Wales, and the same route is now open to the Scottish Parliament, according to the campaigners.

Jo Hunt, director of Highlands and Islands GM Concern, said: "Westminster has quietly opened the door to allow the legal halting of GM crops in Wales and this letter shows it is possible, legal and has UK government backing. The same door is being held open for the Scottish Parliament to halt GM trials too."

Copies of the letter have been forwarded to MSPs on the Scottish Parliament's transport and environment committee, which voted last month to end the Munlochy experiment due to new risks of pollen contamination, based on EU research.

The emergence of the letter comes after the news that Magda Aelvoet, the new minister for the environment in Belgium, had invoked the "precautionary principle" to block five field trials of GM oilseed rape there.

Mr Hunt said: "Last week's decision by Belgium to stop growing GM leaves the UK isolated as one of the only countries still allowing trials to continue. Article 16 offers Finnie a legal way out that has Westminster and EU approval."

The executive said last night: "The Welsh proposition is not binding on other parts of the UK. We remain of the position that we can only halt farm scale trials on the basis of sound scientific evidence that demonstrates harm to human health or the environment."

- May 7th