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A fresh row over genetically-modified food erupted in Europe on Wednesday after the European Commission declared the EU would allow its first imports of a bio-engineered crop, tinned sweetcorn for human consumption, in over five years.

Outraged, Europe's green lobby accused the European Union executive of flouting public opinion and the so-called precautionary principle, by which a GM product must be proven safe before it goes on sale.

"The European Commission is gambling with the health of consumers. Member states remain divided over the long-term safety of this GM sweetcorn, yet the commission wants to force it down our throats," said Friends of the Earth campaigner Adrian Bebb.

"But the public won't swallow this. Hostility to GM food and crops is likely to grow, and the public's confidence in EU decision-making is likely to be damaged."

Greenpeace accused the commission of kowtowing to "American farmers and agribusiness".

"It is irresponsible to authorise a product for human consumption when such doubts persist on its safety," said anti-GM campaigner Arnaud Apoteker.

Fuelling the debate were accusations that the powerful, unelected commission had sidelined national sovereignty and public opinion, which polls show to be massively opposed to gene-altered crops.

Ministers were obliged to hand the decision to the EU executive after member states were hopelessly deadlocked.

Now, even if their governments remain opposed, all EU countries must accept imports of the corn, provided the GM ingredient is identified as such on the label.

GM products are already widely used in Europe as composites of animal feed, but this is a precedent-setting import of a GM-crop, which is made to contain its own insect-repelling toxin, meant for human meals.

Responding to environmentalists' charges, EU Health Commissioner David Byrne predicted public hostility to GM food would recede once it became clear the EU has "the safest food legislation in the world".

The EU executive arm had been "absolutely neutral" and its decision was driven by facts, by "good science," said Byrne.

In France, the head of France's food safety watchdog, a state-run agency called AFSSA, said the GM controversy highlighted the lack of "a clear democratic structure".

By handing the question to the commission, "no one is responsible", be it governments or parliaments, Martin Hirsch said. He called for an EU-wide referendum.

The lobby for European biotech companies, EuropaBio, blasted the environmentalists as scaremongerers.

It said the decision vindicated the opinion of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which had declared the corn safe for human consumption.

EFSA "has spent a tremendous amount of energy in conducting the safety evaluation," EuropaBio secretary-general Johan Vanhemelrijck, told AFP in Brussels.

"We're not happy about the number of years we've had to wait. But the EU procedure has been proved safe from scare stories. We are confident that consumers will use their good sense when given the choice in the shop."

The commission's authorisation concerns just a single product: tinned sweetcorn, which contains the so-called Bt-11 gene. It does not apply to GM seed, nor to the dozens of other applications for GM food technology which are in the pipeline.

Europe's green movement -- its public standing backed by the mad cow scare and other food safety scandals in the past decade -- has been fighting a fierce battle against GM food.

Protests have helped keep Bt-11 corn banned from European shops for five years, and similarly hamstrung efforts to grow these crops, rather than just import them as a food.

Bt-11 corn, widely grown in North America but shunned in Europe, is a leading product in the first wave of GM crops.

The gene makes the plant resistant to the herbicide glufosinate and to an insect pest called the corn borer.

Supporters of GM technology say it reduces the need for insecticides and herbicides, and thus provides benefits in yield and profit.

In general, scientists say they find no significant evidence that this first generation of crops is a danger to health or the environment.

But many of them are cautious. They point to sketchy evidence that DNA from GM crops can spread to other species, affecting biodiversity, which suggests that too little time has elapsed to make a conclusive judgement on safety.

They also worry that pesticide-resistance bred in the GM crops could likewise jump to other plants, creating "superweeds" that end up devastating industrial agriculture.