The European Commission might again put pff a decision on whether farmers can grow more genetically modified crops when it holds a long-awaited biotech policy debate in May, officials said yesterday, Reuters reports from Brussels. After months of expectation, the Commission has finally decided on May 7 for a debate on its biotech policy, centred on what has been called the "Dimas package": after Stavros Dimas, EU environment commissioner and one-of the most GMO-wary commissioners. Cultivation of GM crops is expected to be at the top of the agenda, with three applications long overdue for consideration, one lawsuit filed against the Commission and another threatened. The EU has not approved any GM crops since 1998 while Austria is the only remaining country cited in a World Trade Organisation case - filed against the Commission by Argentina, Canada and the US - to maintain bans, from 1997 and 1999, against two GM crop products. Officials said one possible deal being discussed in Brussels was for Mr Dimas to agree to an order for Austria to lift its ban on import and processing of these products, but maintain its ban on cultivation. In return, his wish to" reject two company applications for growing GM crops would not be blocked. "The idea would be for Dimas to give this and allow the College (the EU's 27 commissioners) to decide on the two [banned] maizes," one EU official said. "It would have to go against the proposal of a commissioner [to block the GM maize applications. Several member states have also come out explicitly against [GM crop] cultivation," the official said. The maizes are Syngenta's Bt-11; and 1507 maize, developed respectively by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a unit of DuPont, and Dow Agro-Sciences unit Mycogen Seeds. Pioneer last year filed a lawsuit against the Commission for what it called undue delays in processing its request for EU approval of 1507 maize. Meanwhile, BASF, the German chemicals company, last week threatened a similar suit over its biotech potato, which it wants EU farmers to grow to produce starch. For months, the Commission has been due to debate the issue in an effort to end a policy vacuum and also show its largest trading partners, such as the US, the world's leading biotech crop grower, that Europe is, to a point, in the market for GMOs. Europe has long been split on biotech policy and the EU's 27 countries consistently clash over whether to approve new, finished GM varieties for import. The Commission usually ends up issuing a rubberstamp approval, which it able to do/ under EU law.