Brussels, 01/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - Two days before the deadline for EU member states to formally notify the European Commission of their intentions, almost half of the member states and several regions are planning to ban cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) within their borders.
Greenpeace welcomed this news on Thursday 1 October, seeing it as a slap on the face for the laissez-faire approach of the European Commission, which, to break the deadlock on authorising GMOs in the EU, initiated Directive 2015/412 which now gives member states the opportunity to ban or restrict cultivation within their borders of GMOs which have been given the green light by the EU.
By 1 October, Austria, Croatia, France, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands and Poland, plus the Belgian region of Wallonia had already notified the Commission of their intention to use their right of opt-out to ban GM crops. Denmark, Germany, Italy and Slovenia, along with two parts of the United Kingdom - Scotland and Northern Ireland - have announced they intend to begin their notification procedures imminently.
In all, therefore, 13 countries are involved in the opt-outs. That is more than the nine (Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg and Poland) which, even before the Commission proposed amending the legislation, had used safeguard clauses to prevent cultivation of MON 810 maize, by Monsanto, states Greenpeace in a press release.
“A clear majority of the EU's governments are rejecting the Commission's drive for GM crop approvals. They don't trust EU safety assessments and are rightly taking action to protect their agriculture and food”, said Franziska Achterberg of Greenpeace. She went on: “The only way to restore trust in the EU system now is for the Commission to hit the pause button on GM crop approvals and to urgently reform safety testing and the approval system”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)