Renewal of GT73 feed authorization

GT73 is a glyphosate tolerant oilseed rape from Monsanto.
It was authorized as food product in the EU in 1997 and as animal feed in 2005, failing to get qualified majorities in the Council of Ministers for an approval.

During the vote on the authorization as food in 2004, this was especially obvious: "19 out of the 25 Environment Ministers who met in Brussels on 20 December voted against approval of the GT73 oilseed rape, genetically modified (GM) by Monsanto in order to resist its own herbicide, glyphosate. As the qualified majority of 232 votes required for adopting or rejecting a Commission proposal was not reached, this leaves the final decision to approve GT73 to the Commission. The Commission has already stated that it believes the introduction of this product to the Community market for industrial processing and animal feed should be authorised. " (Save our seeds dossier)

Even though the feed authorization is still valid until 2017 it is currently (October 2009) included also into the renewal of the GT73 food authorization.