BRUSSELS — The European Commission began a new push Tuesday to allow farmers in Europe to grow more biotech crops, clearing a genetically modified potato for cultivation despite persistent public opposition to the technology.

In the first such step in more than a decade, the commission approved the Amflora potato produced by the German company BASF for cultivation inside the 27-country European Union. John Dalli, the bloc’s health commissioner, said the potatoes could be planted in Europe, with some conditions, as soon as next month.

BASF? So this is what they are doing since the demise of the videotape. The potatoes could be planted in Europe as soon as next month. No point asking us proles what we want.

The potato is engineered to be unusually rich in a starch suitable for making glossy paper and other products, as well as for feeding animals.

Currently the only other biotech crop grown in Europe is a type of corn produced by Monsanto, which was approved in 1998. On Tuesday, the commission also approved three additional types of genetically modified corn by Monsanto for food and feed, but those are for import and processing rather than cultivation.

Do I take it that these seeds are going to be sold to Third World farmers for an exorbitant price? And they will have to buy the patented seed from Monsanto every year thereafter. I think neocolonialism is probably the right word.

For the biotech industry, the decisions handed down by Mr. Dalli, who took office last month, could signal the emergence of a major new advocate for genetically modified products in Europe.

I wonder how long the biotech industry tended this weed.

At a news conference in Brussels, Mr. Dalli, who is from Malta, also said he would present a proposal this summer to give national governments more authority to decide whether to allow genetically modified crops to be grown within their borders. That could make it easier for biotech-friendly states to go ahead with planting certain new products even when other states disapprove of the technology.

When the EU grants national governments more authority, they must be up to something. Perhaps they expect two or three governments to risk the health of their people and farming industry with GM crops and the others will join in out of jealousy.

“Responsible innovation will be my guiding principle when dealing with innovative technologies,” he said.

That’s why one of the first things he has done is approve these crops with unknown consequences?

The bloc has long been divided over biotech crops, with countries like Britain favoring the technology and Austria in fierce opposition.

“We feel encouraged by this decisive regulatory approach,” said Willy De Greef, the secretary general for a group representing the biotech industry, EuropaBio. The “approvals represent a step in the right direction and a return to science-based decision making,” he said.

Can you see what he’s done there? He said, “a return to science-based decision making.” In other words, if you have concerns, that makes you a Neanderthal with the same IQ as a cauliflower. But of course, we all believe the scientists, don’t we? They would never tell us lies to make money or further an agenda.

The commission first forwarded an application to grow the potato to governments in May 2004. When a number of countries raised objections, the commission sent the application to experts at the European Food Safety Authority.

Experts at the authority approved the application for the potato in 2006 and 2007, and again in 2009. But because member governments were repeatedly unable to reach a qualified majority to approve the potato, the commission on Tuesday invoked its power to approve the application by a form of fiat.

This means we live in a technocracy, not a democracy.

That procedure had only been used once before to get a biotech seed to market for cultivation in Europe. The seed, called Bt176 and produced by Syngenta, no longer is grown in Europe.

The Amflora potato looks like any garden-variety spud, but in developing it, BASF included a marker gene as a way of identifying plant cells that successfully produced the desired type of starch. Some scientists have linked the marker gene to antibiotic resistance in humans, raising concerns that the ill and the elderly, especially, could become more vulnerable to disease.

I imagine that’s a plus from some of these people’s point of view.

Environmentalists reacted with fury to the decision, saying that Mr. Dalli had overstepped his mandate.

For a change, I agree with them.

The commissioner “only needed weeks in his new position to show such flagrant support for industry interests ahead of his own portfolio,” said Martin Häusling, a German member of the European Parliament for the Greens.

Opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of European consumers are apprehensive about such technology.

Neanderthals.

The European Commission, however, wants to allow more gene-altered products into the Union to remove an irritant in trade relations with the United States and other countries that use them — and to lower costs for European farmers and industry.

“The way is now clear for commercial cultivation of Amflora this year,” Peter Eckes, the president of BASF Plant Science, said in a statement on the company’s Web site. “Amflora will strengthen the international position of the European potato starch industry.”

There are huge deposits of all types of traditional seeds being stored in Norway, presumably so that when this part of the population reduction programme has finished, the elite can grow the good stuff again.

If anyone thinks this is another of my crazy conspiracy theories then perhaps they could offer conclusive proof that GM crops are safe to eat and safe for the environment, because they are getting the blame for disappearing bees on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly in the USA where GM crops are more prevalent.

And as Albert Einstein is credited with saying: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”