BRUSSELS, April 9 (Reuter) - The European Commission rejected on Wednesday a European Parliament call for a ban on gene-modified maize sales, saying it had no legal powers to do this and defending its decision to clear the product last December.
"There is no possibility for the European Commission to do what the European Parliament asks," Commission spokesman Nikolaus van der Pas told a new conference relayed to Brussels from Strasbourg, France, where the parliament is meeting.
The parliament demanded on Tuesday the suspension of all sales of genetically modified maize in the European Union, pending further health and safety tests. "The language used, which was particularly strong, is not justified," the spokesman said.
Euro-MPs condemned the European Commission's market clearance of gene-altered U.S. maize, granted in the face of opposition from several EU governments, and accused the EU executive of not adequately analysing the long-term effects of genetic manipulations.
Van der Pas rejected the charges as well as assertions that the Commission had bent to commerical lobby pressure in clearing the maize, developed by Ciba <CIGZn.S>Geigy but now owned by Novartis <NOVZn.S>, the newly created Swiss pharmaceuticals giant.
Van der Pas said the Commission had countered Euro-MPs' charges even before Tuesday's resolution but had been ignored, a point he said Commission President Jacques Santer would raise with his counterpart in parliament.
But deputies' criticism about the bloc's complicated and secretive committee procedures clearly struck a nerve, with van der Pas insisting on the Commission's line that EU governments revise the procedures in their talks about EU treaty reform.
On a related issue, van der Pas said Austria's evidence in support of its national ban on the gene-maize appeared to throw no new light on the issue, meaning Vienna's ban was unlikely to stand up.
"At first sight, but I say this with all reservations, we do not have the impression that there are really new elements which can allow the Commission to review its decision," he said.
12:31 04-09-97