GMO Protest
© Tobias Schwarz/ReutersA protest against GMOs outside Berlin’s Bundestag. The sign says “Stop Genetically Modified Corn.”
While it isn't Monsanto getting away with murder this time around, Dow and DuPont Chemical companies have been given a seal of approval by the European Union to grow their GMO corn. The vote which took place that could have vetoed the proposition lost 19 to 28, with 4 member states abstaining from voting. This means only five states wanted GM corn, but the way the weighted voting system is set up in the EU, the Commission is now obliged to pass the GMO crop initiative.

Without a negative qualified majority against the proposal the Commission says it will pass it, according to the Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner, Tonio Borg.

Germans who didn't want GMO crops in their country are furious at their representatives from abstaining to vote, since their single vote would have made a difference. Peter Simone from the Green's said:
"Today the Federal government missed an historic opportunity to be a clear voice against genetic engineering in Europe. The approval of genetically modified maize on European soil puts genetically modified food on consumer's plates. Almost all Germans oppose that."
Several other countries in Europe already allow GMO crops, but more have resisted Dow, Monsanto, DuPont, and other companies from taking a stronghold in their neck of the woods.

This GMO corn strain will be grown in a 28-nation bloc even after 13 years of resistance and, several scientific challenges that the genetically modified food is safe, and two legal challenges.

Approval to grow these reprehensible seeds in the EU rests only on a formality now, the go-ahead of the EU Commission, and the bloc's executive arm, but politicians in the EU are refusing to give a timetable for that. Perhaps with enough push back from impassioned citizens, there is still hope to keep it from taking over all of Europe.