Thanks to Germany's abstention, the EU Council of Ministers on Feb. 11 elected by default to approve cultivation of a new type of insect-resistant genetically modified maize developed by DuPont and the seed treatment company Pioneer.

The abstention by the EU's largest and most powerful member state made it impossible for the 19 member states voting against approval - including France, Italy, The Netherlands, Austria and Poland - to block approval of the crop known as Pioneer 1507. 

Voting in favour were the UK, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Spain, where the only GMO crop currently approved in the EU - Monsanto's insect-resistant maize MON 810 - is grown.

In support of the new maize variety, Spain said its farmers needed to be able to compete with those in non-EU nations that can grow genetically modified produce, while the UK said there was a clear scientific case for the crops.

It now falls to the European Commission to authorize cultivation of Pioneer 1507. Its positive action would end Monsanto's monopoly in Europe's small market for commercially grown GMO crops. At the same time, the EU government is expected to revive a separate proposal that would allow member states to opt out of growing these crops.

Based its stance on a 2005 expert opinion by the European Food Safety Agency, EFSA, which said the genetically modified crop was as safe as the non-GMO variety, the Commission last year said it would not block cultivation of the DuPont-Pioneer product.

As could be expected, environmental organizations, including Greenpeace and Germany's Friends of the Earth affiliate BUND, criticized the decision to approve. In a statement following the vote, BUND placed the blame for the outcome squarely on Germany. The organization said the country's leaders had overridden a clear mandate from consumers and the governments of the federal states to vote against the GMO maize.

In particular, BUND said, the government had ignored a decision by the Bundesrat, the parliamentary chamber of the states, to require that GMO plantings be kept out of the flight range of honeybees.

In January, leading members of the European Parliament called on the Commission not to allow planting of Pioneer 1507 on grounds that Pioneer had failed to present additional documents related to monitoring and risk-mitigating measures for butterflies and moths exposed to its pollen.