The European Commission had asked the Council to overturn the Hungarian ban on the genetically-modified maize seed that, according to the biotech association, has repeatedly been pronounced safe in EU reviews.

It has chosen not to.

"Once again the Council is not following the advice of the EU's own expert advisory bodies," said Simon Barber, director of EuropaBio.

"The Council has failed in its responsibility to implement its own laws and instead today's failure suggests that the council favours state censorship rather than offering choice to farmers to decide for themselves as to whether or not to grow biotech crops; this is deeply discouraging for the future of Europe's agriculture and growth of the bio-based economy."

But the Hungarian government has been confident that it would be allowed to retain the ban. Speaking at a news conference before of yesterday's talks, Hungary 's state secretary Kalman Kovacs announced that there was sufficient anti-GM feeling within the EU to ensure support for the country's stand.

Furthermore, Robert Fridrich of environmental group Friends of the Earth Hungary claimed that upholding the ban was vital to protecting the future of the Hungarian food industry for both processors and producers.

"Hungary is the second biggest corn feed producer in Europe and Hungary's reputation as a GMO free country is very important to this," he said.

"The European public are very much against the use of GMO products, which gives Hungary a massive advantage in the market place."

The refusal of the Council to ignore EFSA advice has precedent. Last December the Council chose to ignore the authority's advice and rejected the Commission's request to have Austria lift its illegal ban on the cultivation of EU-approved GM crops.

"By acting in this way, the Council continues to seriously damage the credibility of the EU's regulatory system which they helped to put in place and on which much of Europe's innovative and industrial capacity relies," claimed EuropaBio.

"Today's decision simply denies the freedom of choice to Hungarian farmers who want to grow insect protected maize crops."

This issue goes back to1998, when the European Commission gave its consent for the marketing of Monsanto's Zea Mays L. line MON 810. A number of EU countries have now authorised the product.

However, Hungary prohibited the use and sale of the product in January 2005, but its justifications for the prohibition were rejected in June 2005 and in March 2006 by the European Food Safety Authority.

On 29 March 2006, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that there is no reason to believe that the continued placing on the market of these products "is likely to cause any adverse effects for human and animal health or the environment under the conditions of its consent."

This issue again underlines how polarised the issue of GM food has become in Europe. But despite the controversy surrounding the technology, GM food expansion appears inexorable.

The recent publication of new figures from The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) shows that in 2006 the number of hectares globally cultivated with GM crops increased by 12 million hectares.

Most of this growth came from countries such as China and India.

An EFSA colloquium will be held in June 2007 on GMO environmental risk assessment involving environmental experts from across Europe, details of which will be announced during Spring 2007.