MON810 renewal
MON810 cultivation had been authorized in 1998 under Regulation 90/220, and was then notified as already existing product when regulation No 1829/2003 came into force. Authorization already expired in 2007 and the renewal process has been under way since then.
MON810 is currently banned in 6 member states despite the EU authorization, and member states have repeatedly confirmed the right of (some of them) to uphold such a ban under the Safeguard Clause. The member states raised 125 pages of comments on the MON810 renewal dossier.
In a joint report, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth Europe had harsh critic on the opinion of the GMO Panel. As a result the EFSA found it necessary to release a statement [1] clarifying and ratifying some of the mentioned points and to invite them and other stakeholders to a scientific discussion in October 2009, after the public consultation period has ended.
One of the arguments raised was the issue of the putative recombinant protein in MON810 maize (Rosati et al 2008).