I find it encouraging that this year, the tenth of commercial cultivation, five European member states have given farmers the choice to grow GM crops.

Some of this is obfuscation. The EU system is already completely open and there are some member states who have always objected to the science.

Spanish farmers have been growing GM maize for six years and they have proved that coexistence is possible.

The (EU) member states agreed in March at the European summit in Brussels that this should be part of our foreign policy and (EU foreign policy chief Javier) Solana was asked to prepare a concept for this.

European growth is projected to average less than U.S. growth for a tenth consecutive year.

By the way, the European Union Member States together - even the euro area Member States together - are by far the biggest contributors to the IMF.