Commission warns five member states to lift GMO bans or face legal action

The Commission has threatened five EU governments with legal action if they fail to lift national bans on a range of biotech crops authorised by the EU’s own Food Safety Authority.

The Commission adopted on 26 April 2005, by written procedure, a decision asking Austria, France, Germany, Greece and Luxembourg to end their national bans on authorised GMOs. Governments have three months to act before the Commission takes legal action.

Following the recent incident where an unauthorised Bt10 GMO variety was traced in the EU market, the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) is in the process of building up a database of detection methods for all existing GMOs in order to prevent unauthorised GMOs from entering the EU. 

The EU’s Health and Consumer Commissioner Markos Kyprianou has said that the United States should consider “establishing a system similar to that of the EU” on the labelling and traceability of GMOs.

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