The initiative, by a group calling itself "Save Our Seeds", comes as the commission is preparing to adopt a controversial directive authorising the "accidental or technically inevitable" presence of between 0.3 percent (for oil seed rape and maize) and 0.5 percent (for beetroot, potatoes and cotton) of GM organisms (GMOs) in batches of seed.

The group, composed of 300 farming, ecologist, trade union and cooperative organisations, denounced the plan Monday as "illegal, non-scientific, unjust and completely unnecessary".

"These thresholds of tolerance are going to lead to massive contamination in agriculture and massive problems for farmers," said Greenpeace's European spokesman Eric Gall.

Other critics denounced the project as the end of the European model of farming based on high quality products and accused the commission of being the GMO industry's Trojan horse.

According to Wallstroem's spokeswoman the proposal is not the final version but critics of the scheme said the very principle of thresholds of tolerance should be ruled out and GMOs present in seeds should be labelled once they could reliably be detected at all.

The campaigners also accuse Brussels of wanting to make conventional or organic farmers pay the cost of protecting their crops from what they say will be the inevitable contamination by GMOs from fields of GM crops.

The commission itself has shown signs of internal disagreement, with Wallstroem arguing in January for the thresholds of tolerance to be lowered. Franz Fischler, her colleague responsible for agriculture, had a few days earlier called for thresholds to be as low as possible but argued against zero tolerance.

"A zero level was perhaps valid in paradise but in the real world it is not possible. Unfortunately, we have been thrown out of paradise," he said.

David Byrne, the Health and Safety Commissioner, has argued in favour of "healthy products" containing GMOs and has called for the de facto moratorium observed in the EU since 1999 on the authorisation of new GMOs to be lifted.

TERRA.WIRE