GMOs (Extracted from Preparation of Environment Council, 4 March 2003)

Brussels, 3 March 2003

The Commission will inform the Council of the state of play regarding applications for authorisation of GM products. 18 applications for new product approvals have been submitted since the new general framework for authorisation of GMOs (Dir. 2001/18) entered into force in October last year.

The Council will also debate the issue of co-existence between GM crops and conventional and organic crops. The Commission will have an orientation debate on this issue on the 5th of March and, on that basis, will put forward concrete proposals to address co-existence of different agriculture practices and models.

DN: MEMO/03/46 Date: 03/03/2003