It seems the World Trade Organisation is drawing back a bit from using its financial muscle against the EU over GM food**, according to an International Herald Tribune story.

.. the World Trade Organization said Thursday that the European Union would be given more time to end blockages on imports of engineered foods like corn.
“The period during which the EU was meant to have worked this out expired, and the parties decided to extend the deadline to Jan. 11,” said Keith Rockwell, a spokesman for the WTO.
The EU had been due to end the blockages by Nov. 21……
Argentina, Canada and the United States have sued the European Union at the WTO, which ruled last year that a de facto EU ban on imports of genetically modified foods between 1984 and 2004 was illegal.

This is quite a complicated, not to mention dull, story that I can’t really summarise without losing focus on the facts, but, basically, some EU countries and politicians object to having to open their markets to GM products on ecological grounds.

This has involved some heavy international pressure for “free trade” being brought to bear on the EU. From the BBC, in 2006, after the EU had even folded and allowed US sweetcorn in.

Two years ago the moratorium was lifted and a modified strain of sweet corn, grown mainly in the US, was allowed onto the market.
But Washington continued with the WTO case because it wanted to be sure approvals for GMO sales were being decided on scientific rather than political grounds.

Well, that sounds like a laudable aim, doesn’t it? Deciding issues on scientific rather than political grounds? Who could argue with that? Hmm. So the decision to push GM foods onto countries that really really don’t want them could not possibly be politically motivated then….. The wide antagonism to GM foods in Europe is “political” while the desire of big agribiz to sell seeds and crops is merely scientific.

In a reply to my comment on his blog, the Exterminator said:

heather, you said “In the UK, where atheism is more or less the default state “…
I don’t think you have any idea how envious that makes some of us feel.

Well, really, Exterminator, everyone in the UK, (nah in Europe, well, in the rest of the world really) is constantly jealous of America. You might have to face a fair bit more Christian lunacy but the lives of individual Americans are generally much better than ours. (Ignore the political leadership for a minute. I am talking about everyday living here)

The US has a widespread incomprehension of potential ecological crisis, a subject which occupies the minds of us Europeans a lot. (The conceptual average American, not anyone in particular.) While we in Europe are sorting through our garbage like starving raccoons* – washing out pickle jars and carefully separating soft cardboard from thick paper – you are living as if the world ‘s resources are infinite, maybe because you assume you have enough power to take what you need from the rest of the world when anything does run out.

Your cars are enormous by European standards. Even some of your ghettoes have detached houses with gardens. Your petrol is laughably cheap, even when you are facing a huge fuel price increase. FFS, you don’t even have to flush your own toilets. You have public restrooms where a sensor marks when you’ve lifted your butts off the pan and flushes the lavatory with more suction than the average vacuum cleaner. We’d all like to live like that.

The only problem is that your food is often shit. And I’m an English person speaking. The English have traditionally been associated with the worst food in Europe. Cheap food in the UK is usually rubbish. UK food makes even such European oddities like the Dutch willingness to put chocolate hundreds-and-thousands (sprinkles) on bread seem moderately tasteful. But, even we don’t have products like the clearly ironically named “cheese” in an aerosol can.

So, “protectionism” aside, Europeans generally don’t trust either your food or your commitment to the environment. Hence, we tend to pressurise our politicians to keep out GM food. My question here is whether Americans don’t also pressurise your politicians to make sure you can carry on driving huge vehicles, using infinite amounts of domestic power and finding magical “food” and household products available in supermarkets that feel as big as small European states?

Scientifically, it seems a mite doomed, unless the overwhelming majority of the world’s climate and ecosystem scientists are somehow mistaken. But, politically, maintaining the benefits of your way of life is a real imperative. So, how likely are we to see Washington pushing to make sure that any other major environmental issues are

being decided on scientific rather than political grounds?

*To quote the Simpsons – and, yes, even your best bloody television is infinitely classier than ours.
** How does anyone square the very existence of GM products with a creationist refusal to accept the evolutionary science behind genetics, by the way?