Brussels, 28/03/2000 (Agence Europe) - The ruling made by the European Court of Justice on the Member States margin for manoeuvre with regard to the European Commission's favourable decision for the marketing of a genetically modified organism ("Greenpeace/Novartis GM maize" case, see EUROPE of 22 March, p.12) was welcomed by Greenpeace. According to the environmental protection organisation, this ruling authorises the French Conseil d'Etat to maintain the ban on Novartis GM maize Bt 176 - which will be immediately invited to do when it statutes on the validity of the French Ministerial ruling (of 5 February 1998). This will integrate the maize in question into the official catalogue of species and varieties of plants cultivated in France in view of authorising its marketing, but the Conseil d'Etat suspended it until further notice on request from Greenpeace and two other plaintiffs.
Greenpeace noted from the ruling that a national court may identify irregularities in the initial approval process by a competent national authority (first stage in the Community procedure), but that it is exclusively for the Court of Justice to pronounce itself on the legality of the favourable decision at a national or Community level. "Since the French Conseil d'Etat recognised that the precautionary principal was not applied in the approval of Novartis GM maize, we expect the European Court of Justice to ban the crop and declare the French approval illegal," underlined Greenpeace in a press release.
Furthermore, believing that, since 1996, new evidence of the risks of the incriminated maize have been found, notably for certain butterflies such as the Monarch or other insects and for the environment, Greenpeace invites France and the other Member States to implement Article 16 of Directive 90/220/EEC and immediately ban this maize on their territory. Austria, Luxembourg and Germany (and Norway) have already done so. In its ruling the Court of Justice refers to this Article by reminding that a national authority has the right - on condition of notifying the Commission - to temporarily limit or ban on its territory the use of a genetically modified product already authorised, if it has solid reason to believe that this product presents a risk for human or environmental health.