EU fails to lift French, Greek GM crop bans

A European Commission expert committee on GMOs yesterday failed to reach agreement on lifting French and Greek national bans on GM crop cultivation, leaving the decision to the EU Council of Ministers, which has only once found a qualified majority on the issue so far.

Following the Greek and French national bans on GM maize MON810, the Commission had asked the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to examine new scientific evidence and judge whether the bans were justified. 

As EFSA found no scientific justification for the bans, the Commission asked its committee on genetically-modified food and feed and environmental risk to order the two countries to repeal their national bans. 

However, meeting on 16 February, the committee failed to reach a qualified majority for or against the proposals. 

As the members of the committee are representatives of the EU member states, the Council is set to face a similar deadlock. The Environment Council is set to meet twice during the incumbent Czech EU Presidency, in early March and at the end of June. 

National bans have previously been introduced by Hungary and Austria and the ministers have never managed to find a qualified majority for or against them, except once in 2007, leaving the final decision to the EU executive, which has then always ordered member states to lift the bans. 

The Commission will now formulate today’s outcome into a formal decision and send it to the Council, which has two months to react to it. If it fails to do so, the final decision is automatically referred back to the EU executive, according to Commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich. The June Envrionment Council may thus be too far away, and ministers could vote on the Greek and French bans in one of the Agriculture Councils in the spring instead, she added. 

The Environment Council of 2 March will vote on the Commission’s plans to force Hungary and Austria to lift their bans. 

It will be the second time that the Council has voted on Hungary. In 2007, the ministers reached a qualified majority against the EU executive’s decision to force Hungary to repeal its ban, but the Commission is now asking them to vote again. A Council spokesperson could not say what the result would be this time. 

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