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EU farm ministers are gathering in Brussels today (27 September) to debate a proposed rule change that would allow officials to accelerate authorisations for 15 new transgenic crops while letting those who want to keep them off their territories do so. The idea has attracted controversy for being the first time that the commission is overtly handing back a power to member states. "To put it bluntly, no member state has yet come up with a convincing reason based on science for blocking GM cultivation on its territory," Dalli's spokesman Frederic Vincent insists. For Mute Schimpf, an expert with Brussels-based campaigners Friends of the Earth Europe, consumers are being sold a dummy. She maintains that "the idea is to press ahead with the next batch of authorisations." "The difficulty is that this is virgin territory, the commission doesn't want do the full legal analysis" other countries would like performed before voting, admits an EU official.