GM or not GM? Consumers have the choice from 18 April 

When new EU legislation enters into force on 18 April, all foods produced from GMOs have to labelled. The only exception to this can arise from an accidental and technically unavoidable presence of GMO, which does not have to be indicated if amounts to less than 0.9 per cent.

The regulation also stipulates that GMOs must be traceable throughout the entire production and distribution process, thus making it compulsory to the producers of GM seeds and crops to inform any purchaser of the presence of GMOs and to record to whom and from whom GM products are made available.

Most stakeholders from industry, consumer protection groups and environmentalists agree that the new rules represent an important step towards making the European rules on GM foods the most extensive system of consumer choice in the world.

"The new system [...] will support the key consumer rights to information and choice and should offer European consumers the possibility to choose whether or not to eat food and food ingredients derived from GMOs," said Jim Murray, Director of the European Consumer Association BEUC.

Geert Ritsema, GMO Campaign Coordinator of Friends of the Earth Europe, agrees: "Consumers have shown that they do not accept GM foods and they will now be given the opportunity to avoid them. While we will keep on lobbying for lower thresholds, I think that the legislation is a step into the right direction. It should also serve as a model for the rest of the world."

The biotech industry on the other hand hopes that the new rules will open the way for lifting the moratorium on new authorisations of GM products for the European market, which has been in place since 1998. EuropaBio's Simon Barber said that "EuropaBio looks forward to the re-establishment of science-based, transparent assessments and approvals of safe GM products. This [...] will allow farmers and consumers to make a clear choice between GM, non-GM and organic products."